I'm watching Deadliest Catch it's a fishing show wait crab crab grabbing
shit yeah Alaskan crabs respect so I'm watching Deadliest Catch and a deckhand
wasn't paying attention and let too many small crabs into the tank this is big
trouble for the captain so the kid admits his mistake and apologizes
captain you're fired I've watched you screw up for years
what's the message here yes sir it's the captain that fire says yes he's the
mistake and says the captain says you're fired okay gotcha yeah yeah yeah okay so
this is this is just tells me a couple things this tells me a few things this
tells me a lot of things right first of all the boss watched the deckhand screw
up for years mm-hmm my assumption is that he didn't say
anything he watched someone screw up for years how is the deckhand going to
improve if he doesn't get counseled on what his shortfalls are okay so that's
one that that could have happened right that's one assumption let's make the
other assumption the other assumption is that the the captain did counsel the
deckhand and watch him screwed up for years and told him you better not do
that you better not do that you better not do that and he's now done it again
and guess what he's getting fired mm-hmm so so that that's understandable so I
think the question is implying kind of like you know hey this yep hey boss this
was my fault you shouldn't let that happen
and now the boss can say a-hole since you're taking the ownership of that
that's no problem we'll let it go mm-hmm that doesn't happen
so if you have a if you have a concept in your brain that you think that when
you when you take ownership for something that you're immune then from
the punishment of the mistake you've made that's not true that's absolutely
not true taking ownership of a mistake does not
relieve you of responsibility of that mistake in fact the opposite of true
when you take ownership of a mistake you're taking ownership of the mistake
and you are raising your hand and saying I own the mistake and if there's
punishment to be meted out it needs to land on me
that's what ownership is ownership is not a get-out-of-jail-free card you know
it's my fault that you don't we joke about this is my bust a my bust on that
one it won't happen again so now everyone just ignores it no this is a
serious violation having the wrong size crabs is the kind of thing to get you
rolled up by the Fish and Game Department and all of a sudden you're
getting shot down it's a serious business hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of thousands of dollars if not more are at stake here and this kid
isn't doing his job correctly so either the boss the captain had
mentored him and was fed up which which it makes him a good boss and this was
his last warning and he failed his last warning and there you go
hey I've been watching you screw up I told you you screwed up I've written you
up about screwing up and I told you not to let this happen again and you just
let it happen again you're fired mm-hmm or maybe the boss wasn't that
squared away and he hadn't counsel to me hadn't had the hard conversations early
with him to square him away and now yeah the boss leaves something to be desired
because he's just the first offense he's that he talks him about his hey you're
fired when I took ownership of the blue on blue and extra notes in extreme
ownership first chapter I could have been fired for that yeah I could have
been fired my boss Kerr said yeah yeah you're right this is your fault we can't
have that happen out here you're fired and I will you know and I said Roger
that mmm it's not hey I own this now here I will say this though if so taking
extreme ownership is not a get-out-of-jail-free card but I will
tell you this if you make excuses it is going to be worst in 99% of the
situation's the small crabs snuck in when I wasn't looking that's not my
fault tactical crabs all right then you just
look like an idiot right so then another thing that this
brings up is this idea of pre-emptive ownership and that is taking owned if
you take ownership of something you don't you don't want to take ownership
after the fact extreme ownership the idea of extreme ownership in its purest
and most effective form isn't hey something went wrong and I'm now taking
ownership for the mistake that's not the that's not the best extreme ownership
scenario the best extreme ownership scenario is when you take ownership
prior to the mistake happening and you realize that if the if there is going to
be a mistake you are going to own it so what you're gonna do is you're gonna
work hard to prevent that mistake from happening that's pre-emptive ownership
you're taking ownership before the mistake happens so this kid this
deckhand could have done put procedures in place to make sure no small crabs got
in it sorted them out properly but instead he thought well you know what
would be no big deal I'll just take ownership and then they'll say it's okay
or you know I'll blame someone else or whatever is thinking in his brain if he
says look if I let small crabs in here I am gonna own it and I am gonna get fired
guess what perhaps he would have worked a little harder to prevent these small
crabs from being where they weren't supposed to be but see when you have
that out when you think you can just blame someone else yeah that allows you
to be slack yeah when you think well you know this isn't really my response but
that's why when I work with companies and they'll have some thing that's going
wrong some problem some procedure that's not working correctly some timeline
that's not being met and one of the first questions I ask it normally like a
huge step in the right direction to rep to resolve the problem is I go okay
who's in charge of that process and a bunch of people will be looking around
at each other and no one's raising their hand and the minute I see that I go hmm
interesting this is this is the answer to me now we know why the process is
ineffective because no one has ownership of it and if no one has ownership of it
and the thing doesn't get done when it supposed to get done everyone just
points at each other as as yeah well you know what
follow his fall to their fault and then no one takes ownership and no one solves
it whereas if you say okay echo you are in charge of this process if it doesn't
work I'm coming after you you know now you can step up your game preemptively
to prevent a mistake from occurring prevent the little crabs from getting in
the pot yeah so taking ownership isn't get-out-of-jail-free card if you have a
subordinate you aren't actually responsible for counseling them and
coaching them and mentoring them and explaining to them what the standards
are so that they can meet the standards explaining explicitly what the standards
are so that they can meet those standards and the optimal ownership
takes place not only after but more importantly before something goes wrong
there you go not to mention you gotta take responsibility for solving the
problem yes you do it apparently this deckhand guy that's not yeah
he didn't take he took ownership for the mistake he didn't take ownership for the
for solving problem he also didn't implement a solution to the problem
there's all kinds of years by the way yeah so there you go