can you please share on your podcast what the difference between lazy
delegation and decentralization is okay so decentralized command is obviously
the one of the principles combat we have in the book that we wrote and I have a
very simple definition that I've been explaining to people decentralized
command it's everybody leads that's what decentralized command is and
and obviously that means you want everybody else to lead and so this
question is what's the difference between being lazy and just delegating
everything and what's good decentralization so lazy delegation
number one is delegating things that are actually your job right because there's
there's some roles and responsibilities that people have and if you take
something that is supposed to be your job and you delegate it to somebody else
because you don't feel like doing it then that's lazy if as a matter of fact
if you're delegating something that it's something that you're delegating because
you don't want to do it then then that's being lazy right if you're actually
delegating something because it's something you don't want to do then
you're being lazy and and I'll tell you it's actually a mindset to take on the
tasks of the things that you don't want to do or that your team doesn't want to
do so this is like literally do you know there's there's something that is hard
to do or that no one wants to do do that thing and I give you an example we had
to we had to stand watch in Iraq on my first deployment to Iraq we had to stand
watch on the prisoners that we would capture so we come back we have to stand
watch on them so I made myself and my assistant platoon commander I was a
platoon commander at the time I gave us I assigned us the worst watch of the
night like the zero 300 in the morning till zero 500 in the morning the watch
that nobody wants because it's in the middle of your sleep pattern no one
wanted that watch put us on that watch we took the worst
watch so I didn't delegate the hard watch
I took the hard watch so there's an example of the opposite of being lazy
you're taking on board the hard tasks you know another one is when we would go
shooting and we'd get done shooting and believe it or not even the SEAL Teams
you got to go pick up brass you gotta go pick up brass off the ground all over
the desert all over the field all over wherever you did a bunch of shooting and
it's pretty easy for the guy that's in charge to have a meeting to attend to
when it's time to pick up brass but I would always pick up brass you know I
would brass Legation the shell the shell cases but it's a pain you know literally
at when you're at land warfare it takes a couple days to pick up brass and
instead of like I said instead of having to go back for a meeting
I'd go out there and you know jump in there and and have the crap job like
everybody else are picking up brass so I wouldn't delegate these things that's
being lazy when you delegate that and in another thing I'll find is if somebody's
complaining of some one of my subordinates is complaining to me about
having to do something I automatically take it and I say oh oh echo it's a pain
for you to do this cool what I'll do it and it has a good
psychological effect on right I mean it's it's it's it's showing them that
like look man I'm here for you and if it's too much for you I'll take it
and I've had people literally go no no no I got ya cuz that's the instinct that
people have they go look man I got it and that's what I would do if I
complained about something and then I said didn't my boss said to me you know
what it's too much for you I'll take care of it you're like no no so that's
all I'll tell you there's also a little form of discipline in there a little
form discipline of taking on board tasks and doing things that you know you don't
want to do yeah that's a way of exercising some discipline in your life
and making things happen so that's the kind of thing all those things that
that's like lazy delegation if you're doing those kind of things where you're
getting rid of jobs you don't want you're getting rid of jobs that you
should be doing and getting rid of jobs that are a pain
or our monotonous or you think they're below you so the opposite that is
decentralized command right this is where you're letting other people do
what they're supposed to do it's when you're letting people do things that
will help them grow hmm does it help a person grow by
picking up brass I suppose there's a little character building in there but
it's not gonna literally help them grow so you don't need to delegate that task
does it help someone grow as a leader to do the 0 300 and 500 watch on prisoners
no it's pain it's just it's just unmitigated pain so it doesn't help
people grow so that that then then you don't have to decentralize that but if
you got something's gonna let somebody grow you let them do it if there's
something that allows you to stand back and be the tactical genius and only
wrote about this in the book you know then and thereby allowing me to have a
different perspective on something then I should absolutely decentralize that
delegate so if if there was a mission came up and we need to come up with a
plan I would tell you to plan it I'd be like echo you come up with a plan on
this and then you'd go and plan it you'd be all involved in it and you would lose
the elevation that I would have so when I come back to look at your plan you say
here's the plan I go hey it looks good except for these two points and you'd be
like man how did he see those points I'd say it's because I had the altitude so
that's another time that decentralized command it's a very helpful
decentralized command means letting people make little mistakes and not
punishing them because of those mistakes that's decentralized command if I just
hammer people and punish them when they make a mistake they're not gonna want
any cake any chance it's not gonna want to take any risk and they're not gonna
want to lead because I've been punitive with my actions towards them now that
doesn't mean and I've seen this happen that doesn't mean if I'm gonna let you
go plan a mission and I see you're screwing it up I'm just gonna let you
have a catastrophic failure no I'm gonna be like hey echo think about this over
here hey echo think about that over there we're gonna get you dialed in I'm
gonna let give you some rope but I'm not gonna let you hang yourself I'm actually
gonna give you enough rope to get the job done and think on your own but if
you start looking like you're gonna hang yourself I'm gonna stop you the other
thing about decentralized command that's positive that's not just lazy delegation
is when you let your subordinates lead so that you can focus upward outward and
forward so if if you have a mission if we have a mission to accomplish and I
tell you to lead it that means you can take care of that mission I can look
upward meaning up the chain of command find out so going on outward meaning
what's the enemy doing and forward meaning what's gonna happen in the
future and if I'm wrapped up in the in the accomplishing of the task at hand
from a leadership position I can't do any of those things I can't look out for
it I can't look out when I can't look forward you gotta let people lead so
that they can become leaders and your actual goal and this is where people get
intimidated is to to set them up so they can take your job that's what you want
you want them to be able to take your job and people get scared of that but
you can't be scared of that yeah what was that quote there's a quote that
where where one guy was asking the other guy or something like hey what happens
if we develop you know our workers and then they leave us and he's like it's
better than not developing on yeah and having them stay yeah yeah yeah that's a
good point I mean that's me trashing that you were
during a quote yeah no that's that's good and you definitely want to set your
people up you want to work yourself out of a job and then you've got a lineage
you your other opportunities will come because people will see that you develop
a team people see that you develop good leaders and they're gonna say hey I want
you to come and do that at this higher position and you're gonna get benefit
from that as well well