can you speak about winging it and when it's best to just go for it and when
making a plan without the time to do so is the best course okay yeah I can
definitely talk about that well winging it is never the first
choice and when when you see people in the you know in the SEAL Teams or in the
military if they're winging something it's something that they practiced a lot
if it's something that they have planned broadly before and they have so much
experience in that whatever that type of operation that they can actually get
away with it right and a good example if you take a jujitsu example like Dean
Dean Lister he can wing it you know match jeff glover can do this into a
ridiculous level of just winging it in competition and just show up and just do
what he does because he's got you know those guys at that high level have a
mental fluidity that's gonna be very helpful for them now there's other
people that are very high level jujitsu players that don't wing it that are very
much more methodical and I'm sure there's some cases with both Jeff and
Dean where they probably should have been more methodical but I mean Jeff is
straight-up suicidal in many of his matches I mean and that's what's
beautiful is is that he moves so much so rapidly that people can't hang with him
on that level in most cases so that's why he's winging it like every movement
that he makes is winging it but case in points
he's puts himself in those situations all the time you come to the gym and
watch him train he's letting people put him in the worst possible situations and
figuring a way out of it so the reason he can wing it in the competitions cuz
he's he's putting practice and discipline there in the background and
if you saw my seal platoon or task you know we could wing it on operations all
the time because we were prepared because we knew each other so well
because we had standard operating procedures that covered so much of the
things that would happen during an operation where we would be quote
unquote so even though we're winging it we're
not really winging it because we have all these standard standard operating
procedures in place that we didn't really need to plan but if you have time
to plan and of course plan do do as much planning as you can dig in and plan
every detail that you can plan now when it does come to planning I think the
most important part of a plan the thing that makes a plan the most effective is
its flexibility and making a plan that is so flexible that when you do the
actual operation and you come up against unexpected things which are absolutely
going to happen you have the flexibility you have options you have contingency
plans to deal with now so plan as much as you can but the
problem is with all that emphasis on planning sometimes people become
obsessed with planning and they plan and they plan and they plan small and they
plan the plan the plan and they don't want to execute and if they do execute
they execute late they missed their opportunity so that's why that's why
Patton said I got this note written down here Patton said a good plan
violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week right
that's what we're talking about mmm come up with a good plan don't come up with a
perfect plan that takes you two weeks to come up with that's not going to help
you that's something you need to keep in the front your mind and that is
especially applicable in a tactical decision that's being made in the field
right something that is unfolding you see the enemy maneuvering you come up
with a quick plan and you execute because every minute that you're waiting
to execute the enemy is maneuvering on you that that lull in enemy fire that's
not them retreating and running away no your mindset has to be that that's them
maneuvering on you they're getting a better position they're setting up
getting ready to crush you so don't let that happen
make a plan and go and that comes back again to flexibility if you come up with
a good plan and you go as that plan is being executed you've got to pay
attention you gotta pay attention and watch how it's unfolding and don't put
the blinders on and you've got your plan and now we're gonna go and we're not
gonna look around anymore we're just gonna follow the plan no you have to be
observant you have to observe orient decide and act the whole time you can't
just come up with a plan and stay on that track because when you come up with
a fast plan you're not gonna have thought about every single detail and
you don't know what the enemy's gonna do anyways you don't know what your
competitors gonna do you can't guarantee that so when you see them start to react
to your what you executed now you've got to be ready to react yourself and get
the off the the upper hand and take the offensive so there's an there's one more
there's one more little dichotomy to this and I'll just say it even though
I'm saying you got to adopt your plan and you need to adjust as things happen
you also want to stick to your five those things are completely the opposite
of each other right I'm saying adapt and change your plan as needed but I'm also
telling you to stick to your plan but for instance if you rehearsed a a or if
you have a standard operating procedure for your order of patrol so this is the
the order of you know the point man and it's it's Jones and then Smith and then
Washington and then Jefferson and that's the order Patrol right and those guys
are always marching in that order and so we know each other we know how to work
together we have fire team integrity we have a standard operating procedure and
we're going to attack a target and when we get closer to the target we see that
hey you know what maybe be better to move this guy over here and move this
guy over here and so let's let's change our standard order of March our standard
patrolling order because you know it'll be easier when we get to the target
don't do that don't do that you have your standard operating procedures for a
reason you have them and when you start pull
yourself out of the standard operating procedures for no good reason mm-hmm
that's gonna come back and bite you it's it's not gonna work out good so be
flexible this is going to be an interesting statement be flexible but
stick to the plan but be ready to adjust let's stick to the plan and that's
totally contradictory and I know that and I apologize but that is what
leadership is leadership is balancing those dichotomies and leadership is
knowing when hey we've stayed with our standard operating procedure we're gonna
hold through it through this little thing right here you know there's been a
there's a little small terrain feature we didn't expect we could change our
plan right now and adapt to that in the unlikely event that or the the small
chance that something happens and it will be better for it at that moment no
stay with your standard operating procedure but then when something
dramatic happens and you need to make a change you do it aggressively you do it
dynamically and then you continue to observe orient decide and act and stick
keep beating the enemy inside the loop
that's it yeah