hi Jocko and echo I recently read the book marine the life of chesty puller and in the book chesty references and the unnecessary loads of administrative paperwork that was required to be prepared for the military I also recently remember on on a recent podcast you recalling a situation in Ramadi where your platoon leaders we’re not thrilled to fill out required paperwork I’m a squad sergeant in a prominent American Police Department and I’m experiencing the same dilemma the micromanaging and oversight is extreme and up to end it’s taking a toll on the morale of the officers citywide the tedious paperwork and constant micromanaging is preventing good cops from being proactive I feel like the job quote-unquote has changed beyond recognition I’d appreciate your advice on how to approach the bullshit paperwork and increase the morale of my cops thank you for your time okay so what would I do in this situation first of all I am going to be awesome at the paperwork I’m gonna do it so well that because if you blow off the paperwork then you go to your boss and say the paperwork sucks and it’s not any good the guy looks at you and says oh you know what you don’t even know how to do the paperwork how do you know this yeah how do you know if it’s hard or not so what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna do I’m gonna start building a case that’s what I’m gonna do so I’m gonna do the paperwork I’m actually gonna log down how many hours I put into the paperwork I’m gonna follow that paperwork and see where it goes and see if anyone actually reads it right because if I can go to my boss and say hey I spent 28 hours a week filing this paperwork and no not one single person read it and then you take the manpower of everyone in the department and then what you do is you actually build a case when you go in to talk to the boss you should have a full magazine of ammunition to combat this paperwork that you’re being forced to do you have to be able to explain it to them in a rational logical manner you can’t you can’t make any headway against your boss if you are trying to fight from the low ground the low ground is why don’t really turn into paperwork and I don’t really do the paperwork and I think the paperwork is crap then they’re looking down on you what are you talking about how are you dare you say that you don’t even do it you don’t even know what you’re doing you got to get on the high ground how do you get on the high ground you get all that stuff done to the best your ability you log down the hours it takes you get your whole little team doing it and you tell your whole team hey look I know this is painful right now everyone in this squad everyone in this platoon is gonna do all this we’re gonna log down what it takes because I am gonna bring a solid case up the chain of command of where we need to limit this paperwork this is a long war situation you know how long it took to build up all that paperwork it took years it took 20 years 30 years for that to happen I used to joke about memory the Navy the SEAL Teams the range our range procedures are super loose we go out there and we shoot like crazy and do all kinds of really dynamic things and we’d sometimes go to a Marine Corps range it was like everything was super tight and I would tell my guys I’d say look that’s because that happened over years one mistake happens how do you stop that mistake from happening again put a rule in place that stops it another mistakes happen another mistake happens put another rule in place another mistake happens put a piece a piece of paper to stop it from happening again and eventually you end up with a range that’s barely even usable so that’s what happened in this department there was little things that happen over time and they build and they build upon themselves and the next thing you know you can’t even recognize what your actual job was so we have to it’s so that took 20 years to happen you’re not gonna undo it overnight and you’re definitely not gonna undo it from the low ground you have to get the high ground you have to be a performer if you’re not a performer you have no say do your job do it well fight the long war
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