hey Jocko what can we do with a co-worker who isn't on board when
someone brings up something to him he gets defensive and turns it into being
everyone else's problem mm-hmm this is a Twitter question by the way and and I
answered it and I answered it really simply really straightforward take
ownership of the problem solve it take ownership of the problem and fix it yeah
right because think about what's happening here right the what the person
is saying like oh this is me saying oh echo won't take ownership of the problem
and every time I tell him he does something wrong he just gets defensive
right so uh I mean obviously I'm not communicating with you well enough if
all I'm doing is blaming you and you're getting defensive and by the way if I'm
the type of person that takes ownership of things why am i blaming you in the
first place I should be looking at myself I should be looking at myself and
by the way if echo if you point your fingers at me and you say hey this is my
fault you know what I say yeah I agree it is my fault and here's what I'm gonna
do to fix it now I'm not gonna rub it in your face I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do
it so I prove a point that's not what I'm doing I'm actually doing it because
I wanna win I'm actually doing it because I want to accomplish the mission
that's why I'm gonna fix the problem hmm now if we have a weak member of the team
that doesn't take ownership then guess what it's my responsibility to take
ownership of the problem and fix it and eventually but the good thing about this
is if you make an excuse about something and I fix that excuse and then you make
an excuse about something else I fix that one and then you make a excuse
about something else and I fix that one eventually there's no more excuses for
you and now you're left with what you can actually handle as echo with no more
excuses to make and then either you're capable or you're not and by the way
guess what as the leader then it becomes my job to get rid of you if you can't if
you cannot do the thing that I asked you to do or that you're supposed to do for
the team so yeah because I mean eventually if you if I keep stepping up
and taking things away from you there's not gonna be any more excuses and you'll
either end up with no responsibility and therefore no value and then you have no
job that's the way it works now let me ask
you this when is there a time that a subordinate does something and it's not
the leaders fault so so think about this and when something goes wrong with a
team member when is it not the leaders of fault so if you got a machine gunner
and the machine gunner shoots outside of his field of fire clearly he didn't pay
attention during the brief that's the problem if I have a machine gunner that
engages non-hostile targets is the machine gunners fault because he didn't
do improper he did improper positive identification of his targets and
engaged a friendlies or or at least non hostel's so that's the machine gunners
fault or the machine gunners weapon goes down because the machine gunner didn't
click it's his fault he didn't clean his weapon maintain his weapon properly the
machine gunners fault so all those things the machine gunner shoots out of
his field of fire the machine gunner engages non hostile targets the machine
gunners weapon goes down all those the machine gunners fault clearly or maybe
not so clearly because here's how I would look at those things because by
the way when I put if you're my machine gunner I put my finger you and start
yelling at you and telling you that you did something wrong obviously we know
what happened you start making excuses and blaming other people and and you
don't accepting responsibility cuz you get defensive and that's what's people
do so for me and what a good leader does is a good leader when the machine gunner
shoots out of his field of fire the leader says oh you know what I didn't
explain the fields of fire clearly enough for you I'm sorry I'll fix it
machine gunner engages on non hostile target then the leader says hey I should
have given you better training on target identification we will go back and fix
that or the machine gunners weapon goes down they mean
that I hate as the leader you know what I should have done a better job
inspecting weapons I should have explained how important the maintenance
was that's my fault I won't let it happen again so even in
these instances where it's real easy to blame the individual a good leader
instead of blaming the individual will take ownership of the problem that's
what you do and that's what's going on in this case you got a co-worker that's
not on board and and just gets defensive and turns it into everyone else's
problem that's right grab ownership of those problems and by
the way that the subordinate that's not taking ownership that's your fault as a
leader and the way that you get someone to take ownership isn't by saying hey
don't get defensive you need to take ownership of this problem it's your
problem that doesn't make people take ownership here's the tricky part here's
the black belt situation the black belt situation is if I want you to take
ownership instead of blaming you I'm gonna take I'm gonna take ownership of
the problem I'm gonna relieve you of that and now you're gonna go around no I
should be able to fix that I'm sorry boss
I'm sorry Jocko I shoulda shot my B I shoulda shot outside to feel the fire I
need to pay better attention during the brief if I don't know what it was I'm
gonna ask questions next time are you sure yes I'm sure please let me get it
fixed and that is how you get someone to take ownership you don't get people to
take ownership by telling them to take ownership of things and there's a little
dichotomy here too because if it's a plan then the way I get you to take
ownership over us by saying hey echo come up with a plan like we talked about
standard operating procedures earlier if I come up with a standard operating
procedures myself and then I forced them on to you you don't take ownership of
those yeah those are mine so I have to give you ownership but when it's a
negative it's when it's a positive thing I give it to you when it's a negative
thing I take it hmm I take it positive thing give it because people want that
positive thing when it's a negative thing they don't want it yet take it
from them hmm and by the way when it's a positive thing and you give it
guess what they want to do with it they want to share it they want to do it yeah
when it's a negative thing and you forced on them they want to get rid of
it so there you go I'm glad that this person's in the game and now they know
how to handle this co-worker and make it into a good situation