my confusion is everyone takes ownership at what level does that end
theoretically the president is the commander in chief
so could take extreme ownership who decides who gets fired how does that
decision get made is that an example of the extreme ownership yeah so again this
is where we start looking at what this looks like what when does it stop when
something goes wrong right when does it stop so uh I was I was trying to apply
this to my life so with the blue on blue right that I had so fratricide Ramadi
friendly fire incident and I took ownership of it now you got to remember
also about people below me in the chain of command said notice my fault knows my
father said no it wasn't your fault it was my fault look what you know you
could say you could look at my boss and go well why why wouldn't you why
wouldn't you be your boss's fault why wouldn't it be his boss's fault why
wouldn't it be their bog why wouldn't you take that all the way up the chain
of command to the president United States who's the senior person in the
military chain of command is the president and why wouldn't he say hey
Jacko's unit had a blue on blue and it's my fault right theoretically like that's
what extreme ownership is here's the deal the goal of extreme ownership isn't
just to take ownership the goal of extreme ownership is to actually solve
the problem that's what the goal is the goal isn't to look who to blame the goal
is to get the problem solved that's what the goal is it's not about just blaming
someone or finding someone to blame and when you take ownership of it that is
the first step that leads us to solving the problem but it's not the solution
itself so when you say oh it was my fault the problem doesn't go away also
firing people firing someone is not necessarily solve the problem now unless
that person a person in the chain of command has
proven to be incompetent or immoral or incapable of doing their job or
blatantly negligent if it's one of those than cool that might solve the problem
but most likely the people just need to be led properly so so here's what
happened my boss listened to me give a debrief and in the debrief yes I took
ownership but I didn't just take ownership and say oh cool now it's gone
because it didn't make the problem disappear
I said hey here's the here's the new standard operating procedures that we
are going to implement to make sure this never happens again
okay so now he sees that I am solving the problem he sees he sees that I
recognize what the problem is he sees how I'm gonna get the problem solved the
problem is it isn't even getting past me how can he take ownership it doesn't
make it past me I'm owning it now a good boss is gonna say hey you know what
jockle I get it and there's definitely some I see what you're saying however I
could have done a better job prepping you guys with training or whatever right
you know and I'm not saying that was the case but you could you can everyone can
still kind of provide overlapping fields of fire to get a problem solved
now like I said I had taken ownership of the problem and offered the solutions if
I had denied any wrongdoing and blamed other people and not come up with actual
solutions then he probably would have look at me man like uh you you're fired
right because you've got someone now that's incompetent of seeing what the
mistakes were in confident figuring out the solutions are he needs to fire me
yeah he needs to fire me and the person above him in the chain of command will
go hey what happened with that fratricide he go yeah the the the
commander out there made the following mistakes and he's obviously incompetent
and I fired him okay Roger that that's now we have a we put a new person in
there we start moving in that direction but I solve the problem that he saw that
we all saw right here's the solutions we're going to use these marking
procedures going to use these time distance think we're gonna make sure
that this does not happen again
now if we go back to the base example look it's one of the examples I use in
leadership strategy and tactics of a machine gunner shoots out of its field
of fire okay machine gunner shoots out of his field of fire
maybe the machine gunner says well you don't know once no one told me what the
fields of fire work totals in my fault and then maybe the fire team leader said
I told him but he didn't listen so you got two excuses right and then the squad
leader says well you know the fire team the fire team leader didn't effectively
pass the word so it's not my fault as a squad leader the fire team leader has
not passed a word correctly and in a platoon commander says well the squad
leader didn't understand the importance of field to fire so it's actually his
fault so now we have everyone no one softly you notice no one has solved the
problem and then the task unit commander says you know the platoon leader doesn't
have good control of his met certain and still no one solved the problem no one
has actually emptily implemented a solution and in a SEAL team commander
the next person in Jannah command says the the task unit didn't you know
trained themselves properly so so still he's just pointing a finger it doesn't
it doesn't solve the problem and then the group commander says the SEAL team
commanding officer is out of touch with what his troops are doing and then the
group commander or the Admiral says you know the group commander's not paying
attention to training so still no one has solved the problem at all that's
doing is blaming we're just pointing fingers and then the the the the the the
SOCOM commander looks at the Admiral and says the Admirals not obviously driving
realistic training you know and so he's just blaming and then the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff says you know obviously SOCOM has no standards but
they still won't do anything and then the president says the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff doesn't understand what's happening in the field and then
the voters say the president doesn't know how to run the military and then
the president gets voted out so the president eventually gets fired because
of this thing cute but that's not that's not what happens so yeah yeah if you
just pass the blame pass the blame class the blame and no one takes ownership
that I don't that that problem continues throughout the whole chain of command
but when people start taking ownership and then the problem gets solved and it
doesn't get anywhere there's there becomes a limitation where the problem
is no longer a problem so if the if the machine gunner shoots out of his field
of fire and says you know what hey my fault next time I will confirm that I
know my field of fire before pulling the trigger so that's that's kind of a
solved problem now it gets overlapped a little bit
because the fire team leader says listen I will make sure and I'm probably
perfectly clear and reinforce and get a read back next time I tell them what is
field fires I'll do a better job pastoral a pond the problem being solved
and then the platoon leader says listen I didn't I should have covered fields of
fire more in the rehearsals so now we got triple so this is not gonna be a
problem anymore no one the fire you know no one to reprimand the problem is
getting solved and you could go right up through the chain of command you know
that the platoon leader says I'm gonna cover it rehearsals and the task unit
commander says I'm gonna actually go through a briefing on why fields of fire
are so important and and you look at all these stacks of people taking ownership
the problem doesn't get out the problem gets solved so that's why a problem
doesn't make its way through the entire chain of command when people start
taking ownership it gets owned and it gets solved now if I got a bunch of
people that are blaming each other then maybe someone has to get fired and one
of the platoons that I was putting through training had a bad assistant
platoon commander and he caused the platoon to fail multiple training
scenarios and the so every time that little assistant platoon commander will
get put in charge of an element he would make bad decisions and screw things up
and now whose fault is that
okay this is the assistant platoon commander he's causing the problem but
his boss mm-hmm I'm barely even talking to his system to be sure I'm telling him
hey tackle you did this wrong tackle you do that wrong but I'm talking to platoon
commander going hey is this guy capable hmm because he keeps making your whole
platoon fail now eventually the platoon commander has to own that and the
platoon commander who has tried to coach tried to mentor tried to you know give
the guy tactical instruction and he's still not capable then guess what the
platoon commander takes ownership and says you know what you're fired
so he took ownership of that problem now does the task you too commander need
the platoon commander because not really because there's no more problem the
problem is gone and he goes okay you know I get it you had to fire that guy
so when you take ownership of a problem you know maybe it gets another layer up
maybe two layers up but it it doesn't just a problem doesn't just continue
forever now you can have serious problems where where it just continues I
mean look at Watergate right you know there was a break-in people the trust
was lost and all of a sudden that problem with all the way up through the
chain of command and the president resigns so if it's bad enough and no one
takes ownership you know if one of those got in and I would have to go into the
details of Watergate but you know sometimes you see this where someone in
the chain of command goes this was all on me and then usually people can wait a
second are you sure are you sure your boss didn't know about this are you sure
that his boss didn't know about it and that's kind of what from what I remember
about Watergate it was you know first you got guys gonna it was just us we
were acting alone and then all of a sudden they figure out no actually the
president knew exactly what was happening and therefore he's you know
gonna get gonna get gonna get punished for it hmm so again I think the
important thing here is taking ownership is not about figuring out who you should
blame or who you should fire now it's you know even in extreme ownership I'm
talking through that problem in my own head or in the blue on blue I'm saying
like I'm trying to figure out who to blame mm-hmm you know and and I realize
there's one person to blame it's me once I do that then it's not about like okay
now I'm gonna blame myself and now we're good no it's how do I solve the problem
so we can win that's what ownership is and that's why
you know to going back to this original question when does it stop it stops when
the problems get solved it again just one of those critical elements which
actually is more important when you think about it the solving the problem
part of it more so then it's my fault it's their fault or whatever because if
we didn't have this instinctual blaming self or what he
called defensive defensive mannerisms yeah that it it wouldn't it just be way
different so but since that is a natural thing it's kind of like it has to be
part of extreme ownership you know it just has to be for you to be compelled
to solve the problem if you believe like for real believe not yes if you if you
if I just go oh this is my fault and that's it and I don't really believe
that I can solve the problem it's like this I'm one of one of the guys national
on Front was talking to a client the other day and one of the senior people
look when the senior executives said you know oh I've got you know 1200 people
that work for me I can't be responsible for what they do when they make a
mistake mmm and here's the deal when you have that
attitude you're right you can't do anything and this goes back you know I
talked about it with Darrell Cooper on the Abu Ghraib thing if the leadership
says you know what the got the people that are in the prison that are guarding
the the insurgents that were captured if they do something if they abuse those
prisoners that's not on me that's that's somebody on the frontline
if you have that attitude then yeah you're gonna have problems but if you
have the attitude hey what happens on the frontline is my responsibility then
guess what you do you clarify your commanders intent you make sure that
everyone understand what the rules of engagement are you make sure that owners
everyone understands what the goal of having these people in these situations
are you making sure they understand what happens if they get caught or or yeah
what happens if they get caught abusing prisoners what that's gonna look like
what that's gonna do the war effort you do all these things to mitigate that
that's what you do but when you think well no of course I'm responsible time
not really response yeah you don't take the actions necessary that pre-emptive
ownership to solve those problems and then when something does go wrong if you
throw up your hands and can't control what's happening on the frontline I'm
firing you immediately I'm firing you in ten seconds if I if someone happens to
the frontline and I talk to the leader and I say you know your frontline people
did X Y & Z wrong and they go hey you know what I can't control it
Frontline I'm like cool you're fired you don't I mean like you if that's your
attitude I want something that says hey you know what here's the things that I'm
implementing make sure that doesn't happen again
here's the course I'm running here's the oversight I'm putting in here you know X
Y Z to solve those problems that's what I'm gonna do okay great
you're obviously taking ownership of the problem I'll take you no I'm gonna take
ownership maybe I can provide you this or that to help you but then the once it
gets there that that problem doesn't continue on indefinitely we get it
solved that's the beauty of extreme ownership is that the problem gets
solved so you're so when you fire that or you know theoretically it's kind of
like you're firing them because like you the example you just said right there
with the guy who has that attitude right no control this you fire me essentially
because he's gonna continue to either allow or be a problem that's gonna
continue yes it's gonna come to anything so like getting rid of him replacing
whatever that essentially solves a root of a problem yes bigger problem um so
what Eve you know cuz every once in a while you'll find it situation company
whatever where they'll fire guy just as punishment like the it's not necessarily
that given the circumstance where he'll continue to be a problem it's not that
kind of situation or it doesn't it's not obvious that it's that kind of situation
but it's like we need someone's head for this mistake like that kind stuff or
whatever like how would you like I don't know how would you approach
take extreme ownership does not prevent you from getting fired yeah we should be
perfectly clear about that I will tell you that in my opinion you have a better
chance of not getting fired if you take ownership than if you put your hands up
and put or point fingers and other people either you put your hands up say
well there's nothing I could do about that was the front lines that's not me
I'm firing you if you say well it wasn't my fault it
was the junior leader that directed that oh I'm sorry you're gonna fire that
leader or were you gonna train them are you gonna do something different are you
gonna implement some standard operating procedures so that gonna happen or are
you just saying you can't control it cuz if you can't control it I don't need you
here so yes sometimes people take ownership and they're getting fired
anyways I will say this if they are proactively really truly taking
ownership of what is happening if they're taking pre-emptive ownership
they're not going to be sitting in that position
first place because whatever things are unfolding they go men if we get caught
doing that I'm gonna be the one responsible for it I own this and so hey
front line you can't do that here's the training here's the right protocol
here's that here's how you handle those situations and don't ever do that again
and they go okay and now when the boss comes to me and says hey we had this
just flare-up I go yeah here's what I did about it I know I'm aware of what's
happening I already got it under wraps boss okay cool thanks but if I go well
you know all that stuff was happening and I never did anything about it and I
didn't know about it guess what expect to get fired extreme ownership does not
prevent you from getting fired it's a post mortem
you know you caused a problem you allowed a problem happen under your
command you have a better chance of not getting fired if you take ownership of
it but if you have an egregious thing happen and it's on your watch you might
get fired and if you make excuses if you think you can kind of weasel your way
out of it you're your gut you're gonna get fired as well you're just gonna look
like a weasel honey like have this vision of the guy you know who gets
fired right in on this way out his is what are you calling like a little
basket of his stuff you know that classic image and he's like but I took
extreme ownership but I - yeah you should have taken extreme ownership
prior to this happening and look I actually it's funny can't remember what
I say know how extreme ownership is always on the top right like no matter
the problem even that let's say I got fired like I guess I took extreme
ownership it was my fault fully believe did everything and then I got fired
still right meanwhile I'm like mad at extreme ownership promoters who didn't
work got fired aren't you sort of blaming extreme ownership now yes you're
the strange in a strange world you are correct
yeah you're you're now blaming extreme ownership oh but what you're really
doing is you're you're trying to take ownership after the fact that's why it's
important to have the attitude of extreme ownership you that's the problem
within this what I wrote about in leadership strategy and tactics the
problem with extreme ownership is that it's post mortem it's after the fact
pre-emptive ownership is hey you take ownership of everything that's going on
so you prevent these problems from occurring
yeah now if they are I will promise you the best thing you
can do is say here's the problem here's the mistakes I made here's one I need
you to fix it yeah that is your best method of survival and if you don't do
that well if you do that it's no class I just
said it's no guarantee that you're not gonna get fired because you still might
get fired but if you run in there and you make a bunch of excuses I mean yeah
okay check