how do you deal with ultimatums from customers bosses etc that are
unrealistic due to the nature of the situation and the ultimatum what I'm
gonna do with ultimatums is I am going to tell the truth about the situation to
them but first I'm gonna tell the truth about the situation to myself because
you got a look at the situation and said yourself is this truly unattainable like
truly unattainable and and sometimes even though it seems truly unattainable
but then when you actually think about it you realize oh I could attain this I
can make this happen I'm gonna have to sacrifice whatever to make it happen
I'm gonna have to - it's gonna cost me or the team or the company something in
order to make half like oh you want that done you want that you want that project
done by you know the 15th cool will get it done but here's what we're not gonna
be able to do or here's what I'm not gonna be able to do and I'm also gonna
make sure that I pressure test the ultimatum against me giving the absolute
full measure of effort right like wow if I go a hundred and ten percent right not
even on a person beyond you're gonna give it everything you can is it
achievable because a lot of times people will do it's an altimeter can't make it
well as a member of a team I want people's attitude to be like you
know what we're gonna do it we're gonna get it done no one else be able to do
this but we're gonna do it watch that's that's I like saying that sometimes
watch watch I used to say watch me work yeah where I got it from some so then
okay so now you truly you tell yourself the truth about the situation you figure
out that there's truly under no circumstances that this is possible then
it's my time to tell them the truth which is like listen and I'll get my
data together I'll get my information together
I'll explain to them what you know what why I can't I'm not gonna be able to
physically get this done it's just physically not possible hmm and then you
know what the shortfalls are gonna be now and once I explain that to him if
they're if they're completely unwavering cuz if you explain everything and you
put your data together and you say look the bottom line is to do two to assemble
this many pieces by our best two people on the team it takes them an outreach
and you want us to assemble 14 of them in three hours it is not possible for us
to do that hmm even if you gave me more people it doesn't matter that you know
how to do that so it can't be done I need at least whatever six hours with
those but whatever whatever it is if they're unwilling to to waver on the
ultimatum at all like no go you need to get it done you need to get done well
then what I'm gonna do okay I'm gonna try my hardest I'm gonna buckle down I'm
gonna do my best I'm gonna see how much how close I can get to achieving the
goal I'm gonna have fun I'm gonna go so hard that it's gonna get nuts like we're
gonna get it done and then when if we fall short which we will because I
figured out there's no physical humanly possible way to make this happen then
what I'm gonna do is I will go to them and I'll explain the things that I am
going to do differently next time in order to meet their goals right I would
say listen you know what I should have asked you earlier if this was a possible
thing and I should have had a back-up plan so here's what I'm putting into
place now to make sure this doesn't happen again or hey I am going to need
more manpower so that if we run into this again I've got the people it's my
fault for not staffing us up correctly or I need to pay more attention to
what's happening in the future so that I can have a better aware I have better
awareness of when this type of situation will unfold so I can have my team
prepared for it or these complexities that happened I didn't explain to them
that explained them to you well enough and so if you understood if I do a
better job of making you understand the difficulties
making this happen hopefully you'll realize that there's no that's more time
is needed so I'm not gonna go in there and throw up my arms and see I told you
so you were stupid I was right cuz then
that's just sabotage to now they don't believe you anyways yeah now when you
said we couldn't get it done see like I told you I told you we need
more time and they're like yeah of course you know youyou went into it
think you're gonna fail and guess what self-fulfilling prophecy good job yeah
good job you proved yourself to be right loser demoted and that's what I do I'll
bend down the chain by the way you know ultimatums can come up and down the
chain of command hold the line do your best that's what you do yeah that seems
and tell the truth it all starts with telling the truth yourself yeah and then
to your people that your chart customer yeah you know client I want this
foundation poured by such and such a date hey week we will do our best here's
the shortfalls you know whatever yeah that's the way it is yeah and that's a
big on me I like where I kind of learn this from you where it's because you can
like to tell you like oh hey I can't this can't be done like you kind of get
to the point in your mind where you're like if we both know it can be done but
you know given my current risk and sleep schedule and you know I got this show I
like to watch it you know it's like that kind of situation so it it kind of
shapes up to be like that you know where it's like we both know and I don't know
you know like if there's a boss who's like just grinding someone into the
ground okay that's a whole different scenario but yeah at the end of the day
like if you're truthful and it's like hey get just done or you're fired kind
of thing and then you start with the truth that you say you'd be like can I
get it done and then you really think let's say like you were gonna die or I
don't know you could get it done you know a lot of the times I'm not saying I
would have of course of course the amount of times in my naval career let's
call it when I was in the that guys said to me like we can't do it
I can't even remember times like cuz guys guys just be like yeah yeah they
wouldn't be like run no Jocko I be like hey look here's what we gotta get done
ya think we can do it and they'd be like
cuz we're about to go get some but yeah and you know obviously the situation
some situations are more like more serious you know like you're not gonna
yeah but yeah that telling the truth thing tell the truth yeah I do speak
from a position of luxury where I have the truth reflected at me pretty
accurately on a pretty regular basis so I'm not saying it's that easy to tell
the truth buddy if you just try hard try genuine you gotta be genuine right
genuinely be like yes this is true about myself do it check