in podcast 54 the Armed Forces officer and member that book
the Armed Forces officer yeah one of my fav edition yeah can you expound on the
difference between these two these two seemingly contradictory quotes from the
manual a firm hold at the beginning pays tenfold dividend of the timid approach
followed by a show of firmness later on from general Malone's story of the World
War one compared with and general Malone's if you remember the story was
there's a mad messed up unit and he went and there was like alright get squared
away get these boards in place get out of the mud what you need to get your
uniforms together just tighten about out right like firmness right out of the
gate yeah and then compared to okay here's a quote it's a mistake for an
officer on taking a new post to order sweeping changes affecting the other men
in the belief that this will give him a reputation for action and firmness the
studying of situations is the overture of the steadying of it and that's from
general LeMay and general LeMay if you remember that one he said hey none of
you guys would be in these positions unless you were doing things right so I
assume that you're doing a good job and we're gonna continue what you're doing
that's what he said when he took over so what's going on here is you got two
completely different situations and the two situations are one is a guy taking
over first situation a known bad situation the troops are lacking
discipline they're not executing the mission if you remember that story they
weren't even doing basic military bearing they didn't they weren't
saluting the officers they just hadn't thrown everything out the window that's
a situation you got to come in you got to get firm out of the gate mm-hmm
that's what you got to do now they got to know that they got to know that
things are gonna change they got to know it's real they got to know there's a new
plan and they got to know what that new plan is and then they got to know that
there's new standard and they got to know what the new standards are boom and
it's the same thing you know Hackworth he did that he came in with some you
know if you remember when he took over the the hardcore battalion what became
the hardcore battalion the first thing he did was like all those radios and
guitars and all this crap that you have sitting around base put it all in the
middle the base tomorrow and we're getting rid of it all that was
a big change now Hackworth then he then he started
implementing two changes a day if you remember hey gotta get everyone carry
your weapon at all times that's the next change okay get your helmet okay
now we gotta get a helmet cover so he just made one one or two small changes a
day after he made some big sweeping changes out of the gate because it was a
jacked-up battalion and now now the difference is if you're going into a
situation where everything's going fine or okay or at a bare minimum it's like
normal hmm well then you don't need to step in there and show that you have a
man by making these sweeping changes you don't need to do that it comes across it
comes across like the people that you just took charge of have no idea what
they're doing and yet you know you don't respect what they did what they what
their methodology you don't respect their their performance because you're
coming in and saying oh echo by the way the way you report to chord the podcast
you need to get rid of those microphones you need to edit it tighter your base is
to you know what would you be thinking if I came in and said that well you know
mean little bit different but you know I understand your pain point being if
somebody comes in and starts criticizing you right when you do it when you're
doing a good job you know you're doing a good job
yeah nice I think you're doing a good job there's something minute I get on
you about that bass occasionally that's you hit that's really on you you know
your brother bass yeah my Park so that's the thing if that's the decision you got
to make and guess what it's not black and white you don't go into some units
it's not like you're gonna get a choice between a unit that's doing horrible and
a unit that's doing great you're gonna get everything in between and therefore
you have to modulate your leadership to reflect if it's if it's a group that
might have a tendency of being a little bit jacked up and they're getting close
guess what got a got to be maybe not sweeping changes but you might need to
make a little statement right if it's a group that's performing awesome
fantastic top top tEEN TOP whatever you might need to come and say hey guys I
see that you're doing great I'm here to just keep you guys doing what you're
doing let me know what you need to support
boom and it could be anywhere in between that that spectrum mmm
that's why leadership is challenging you get it because you got to be already
gotta have a nuanced gotta be able to modulate yeah gonna figure out where
that is and you got to test it out too once you give that sweeping order you
got to see what kind of reaction you got mm-hmm you know you got to see two
people just instantly Rebell okay then let's talk this let's get some feedback
what's going on mmm clearly we have a disrespect scenario going on we need to
get to bottom this let me get some key leaders in here let me talk to them get
some feedback which you should do that before you make any sweeping changes
anyways you gotta at least talk to the key leadership get them in the game get
them on board yeah that's why leadership is awesome that's why be that's why this
stuff is so fun cuz it's challenging it's different every single time yeah it
feels like kind of like what we're talking about earlier where if you start
to understand the formula all the different details that come out you can
kind of apply the formula in one way and even then still dynamic but but you can
you can just get a better grasp it's just like jujitsu cause if you
understand the concept yeah that you have to be able to move your hips
there's a bunch of different ways you get your hips moving if you understand
the concept that you need to immobilize the hips to pass the guard if you
understand that concept there's all kind of different ways you can do it if you
understand the concept of totally jacked up team is gonna need a sweeping change
to get their attention and get them to understand that things are gonna change
and what they were doing was unacceptable if you understand that
concept that that's what it's gonna take you can apply it all the way through
those gradiation x' all the way down to hey this team is doing great and I don't
need to change much I just need to give them the support that they need yeah
conceptual instruction very important