you recently said hackworth was a rule follower most of his career but in about
face the book he always talks about how he went against his command his rules
how do you play the game but also act like
hackworth yeah and so this is a classic example of the dichotomy leadership with
regard to obeying rules and and Hackworth absolutely obeyed the rules
and he obeyed them to the to the extreme sometimes if you remember in the book he
he he worked in situations where he they were like the strictest in garrison so
like not in combat just in garrison he would everything's perfect uniform if
you remember when general Mookie amo was on and we talked to it we talked to him
about meeting hack for the first time mm-hmm
and you know it's kind of like what was he like and he was all he was high and
tight haircut totally squared away that's following the rules too and T and
the other thing that he played he definitely played he played the game
mm-hmm hackers played the game he developed with he developed
relationships with people that were senior to him people that were
influential SLA Marshall who he went on tour with if you remember through
Vietnam and asset Lee Marshall he didn't really even respect book SLA Marshall
had such big influence that he said hey you know what I gotta become Bros with
this guy hmm he played the game because Marshall had influence and he even took
some hits you know took a little frag from for SLA Marshall hmm but at the
same time if his troops weren't getting the right treatment that they needed he
would do what he needed to do he would break rules to take care of them if he
had to and at the same time he would follow the rules to a tee if you
remember when he took over the battalion in Vietnam the hopeless and wanted to
turn him into the hardcore he brought all their crap into the middle of the
thing and said we're gonna fly it out of here nowhere radios no more guitars none
of this other stuff and getting it out so that's like following the rules to a
tee but at the same time if he needed to like steal food for them or stakes don't
forget about you he would do that snuff so he's
constantly balancing that economy another thing he did is he he took these
administrative jobs that he hated in order to rise through the ranks in order
to become to get to get places to develop relationships social so we could
have more influence he was assigned to the Pentagon he in the book he talks
about the Pentagon being working in the Pentagon being a claustrophobic whole no
more than 20 by 20 feet with 15 other people in it and he talks about I said
you'd say your paper your inbox would be filled when you showed up and you'd
immediately the phone would be ringing he'd be talking to people all over the
world via if all the people in Vietnam they're calling you at their their time
zone and so he didn't like this job but guess what
got the highest possible evaluations when he left why cuz he played the game
and he built these relationships with with all these Colonels and all these
generals and all these people that had influence there's Glover Jones and
Pearson heard countless others by doing what he needed to do and then when he
needed to he broke he broke the rules and
sometimes he went a little too far with breaking the rules and when he when he
got out when they kind of drove him out after he did the big interview where he
said hey we're not gonna win they went and drilled down into his camps and
looked at the things that he had going on there said oh you but you're allowing
this to happen you're allowing this to happen so he left himself a little bit
vulnerable by breaking the rules a little bit too much so a rule to learn
from that is I don't do things that people can hold over you and for me the
things that people can hold over from you are things where you can't stand up
and say yes that's what I did mmm yes that's what I did
hey my guys didn't hadn't had a good meal in four weeks they've been in the
field for three of those weeks and when they came out guess what I I figured out
a way to get some steak and I took it from the rear and I had it flown up
using milla using our helicopters and I had it yep that's what I did and if you
want to you want to drop the hammer on me for that
got it mm-hmm now if you do that that's cool but there's some things we break
the rules where maybe you wouldn't be able to stand up tall and proud and say
this is what I did in his to why I did it
so you want to be careful that you don't do things that will allow people to hold
things over your head and for me things that are things like that are things
that you can't stand up with your chest out and say this is what I did and this
is why I do I know it wasn't within the regulations this is what I did this is
why I do it and if I get fired because of that understood
check now here's where you get a little here's where we can we can question hack
for sure let me ask you this if hack would have because okay so he didn't
play the game at the end he didn't play the game he went on an interview and
said hey we're not gonna win the war not the way we're fighting we're not gonna
win the war within a few weeks he was driven out of the army he didn't play
the game at that moment right so let me ask you this if he would have played the
game just a little bit just look we need to change our strategy if we're you know
I mean if you would have just and then he would have stayed in and then he
would have perhaps gotten a promotion and got perhaps gotten to a position
where he actually had influence over the way the war was being fought if he had
done that would he have been better off would he have been able to better help
the situation because I don't know once they drove him out it's not like that
interview well I don't know we'd have to check the check the historical sort of
results of that interview it certainly started to sway public opinion and maybe
that you know maybe in his mind hey I need to tell every what's going on so we
can get out of here right so maybe maybe that was the intention maybe that was
the result maybe that helped shut down the war eventually but maybe if he would
have played continue to play the game he could have gotten to a position where he
had more even more influence and could have changed the way the war was being
fought I don't know I'm sure we could have a
debate up about that but that's as a leader something that you are going to
have to weigh out all the time and there's situations where and actually
breaking news today general mattis just put in his
resignation for being Secretary of Defense so is that's what I have to talk
about that when I get a little more information on is that him saying look I
it's gonna be better for me to make this statement by leaving mm-hmm
or would he have been better off staying there where he can at least still have a
massive amount of influence because he's the Secretary of Defense will have to
drill down on that one that's a that's a good question both those are good
questions and the bottom line is if you haven't read about face read it and
learn from a guy named colonel david hackworth next question next question
answer that question was sort of another question kind of a question you got
asked yourself yes and that's a question and I've talked about this where if I
tell you echo hey echo I want you to do this mission I want you to do this way
take your platoon and go do it and you disagree with what I'm telling you yeah
and you just say hey boss I don't want to do it that way and I said hey you
shut up and do what I told you to do and you go you know what you can fire me but
I'm not doing it I go okay fine you're fired and I get knucklehead over here
who's a yes-man it comes in and I tell him to go do the mission when I told him
to do it and he goes and doesn't gets everyone killed mm-hmm would it have
been better off if you said okay boss I get it I I'll do it your way here's some
things I'd really like to not do and you go no I said no shut up and then you
take your guys you mitigate everything that you can actually there's an example
of this in Band of Brothers where major winners is being told hey send a
reconnaissance element across the river again tonight and he doesn't want to do
it the the war's almost over they had taken some casualties I think the night
before when they did the same type of operation and he just says god it boss
and then the guys go and they sit in the they pretend to go out but they really
just sit in the basement of a building on their side of the river
and then later on they say up we went we came back we didn't find anything okay
cool there's a perfect example hmm imagine if
major winners dick winners was like we're not doing it
and now you're getting an ego contest with the colonel is like oh yes you are
no we're not okay fine you're fired let me get knucklehead over here who's gonna
do what I told him to do who's a total yes-man and now we take that risk and
guys get killed so so who is it there's a dick winners played the game he played
the game so he could still have that influence and power and and still
protect his guys yeah can get complex yeah it's it's very that's what
leadership is hard yes that's it's weird though because when you say it's complex
and you say leadership is hard at the same time like you if you're a
principled human being and you have principles and you know what's right and
you're doing the right thing for the right reason the decisions are actually
usually a little easier clearly clearer yeah it might not be easy but they're
clear like I know what I'm supposed to do here yeah I got it yeah I got I'm
gonna figure this one out yeah and this I think applies to to most
scenarios where like if you think of the big picture where if you're like eh I'm
gonna consider myself after everything is gonna be said and done you know it
kind of goes along with what you said like oh can you stand it up if you
consider okay look back you're gonna there because there's gonna come a point
where you're gonna look back on this and you're gonna feel the way you're gonna
feel right now but later on how are you gonna feel about like how you handled it
you know what decision you made in how you anything to tell kids - yeah would
you if you're if you're at a party or you're wherever and something's going on
would you be proud to stand up and be hey here was the situation yeah and I
this is what I did and this is why I did it well if you can't maybe you should
really reconsider what your actions are gonna be no man because a lot of that
time shoots which is a kid as an adult too a lot of the time it's like they're
literally the opposite decision you know like especially if it's one of those
like go along with the crowd kind of scenarios you know or psycho that it's
easy to go along there and when your kids special one involves drinking and
stuff sometimes there's really no consequence you know
whatever you did something dumb no one gets hurt or dies or nothing like that
but every once in a while there is but so it's like it makes it harder because
you don't like when you go do something not dumb I don't know jump off a bridge
I know something drink and drive or whatever and no one dies or knowing
nothing big happens it sort of reinforces that maybe it might be okay
you know you may be able to slide with this behavior a little bit you know yeah
but at the end of the day you know yeah if you can clearly see that big picture
where in the future you're gonna be looking back on how you handled it yeah
here's another thing same concept I used to tell I told my guys was you just
might as well act like CNN is recording what you're doing in it right so you
want to act like an idiot guess what it's gonna be on CNN because someone's
got a camera somewhere around there and you might as well be saying that today
as a kid as a teenager you might as well be saying yep this is this is the next
viral video this is my 15 minutes of fame is gonna be me doing whatever I'm
doing right here yeah yeah gotta watch out for that learn from hack