How To Take Ownership When It’s Not Your Fault – Jocko Willink

when you’re trying to take ownership of a mistake made by a fellow team member what do you do if the team leader asked for a step by step step by step breakdown of events I’ve said it was our mistake and not to n-not made excuses but a step by step breakdown would expose the fact that he alone was responsible for the error hmm interesting so he basically that’s interesting it is wait wait so he’s been saying okay it’s our mistake right I don’t want to individualize this guy or so you know make him stand out or whatever it’s our mistake and we’re gonna fix it kind of thing and he’s like no I want to step by step by step step by step is gonna reveal ready the solo actually bills fault and now what I did I tried so hard to take ownership but here it was actually bill that was all Jack yeah actually not my it’s exactly not my fault is what we’re saying it’s it’s the truth right you get that right yeah I guess check it out who’s responsible when you’re taking ownership of something when you’re taking extreme ownership of something whose fault is it yeah mine yeah sure does that include when someone else on your team makes a mistake yes but how can that be good it’s your team so let me ask you these questions here’s what I’d be thinking the teammate was in error why why did the teammate make a mistake why didn’t the teammate have backup why didn’t the rest of the members of the team why didn’t I actually go through with him and make sure that he knew how to do that procedure properly he’s part of my team we’re responsible for this taking place I knew he was a little bit shaky and I didn’t do anything to fix it that’s why it’s our fault it’s not our fault because we say oh it’s our fault but it’s really bill that’s not that’s not what we’re talking about the point is the point is to actually own it so if my coworker fails I’m literally saying to myself what mistake did I make that my coworker dropped the ball what mistake did I make my coworker dropped the ball what mistake did I make did I not show it to him did I not ask him if he knew how to do it did I not ask him if he needed some help did I not confirm that he knew the procedures correctly all those things are my fault did I not do a good job of identifying that bills a little bit slow on the uptake and therefore he needs a little extra preparation for this and now now think about this what can I do once I make those mistakes okay we’re gonna do fix them and now think about this from a leadership perspective you go down and you say hey guys you guys messed up this thing why did it happen now think about the team wherever it goes well you know it’s our fault mostly bill right and I’ll tell you when I when when when I look at a platoon and bill made a mistake I don’t look at bill a good leader doesn’t just look at bill a good leadership looks at everyone on the team especially certainly the leadership but I think this guy’s talking about from a peer but it doesn’t matter from a peer perspective if there’s a mistake that happens we are truly responsible and then from a leadership perspective when I go down to the team and I say hey guys what happened and they said well it was our fault but this is what Bill did I okay so you just drop a dime on bill I’m not gonna say okay so it’s all bills fault cool I’ll tell you what whereas if you say hey listen boss is what happened here’s the procedures we went I don’t think we did a good job a briefing bill cuz here’s what bill did he did step three instead of step four my fault we went through twice but why should have gone through it a couple more times and confirmed he knew what was going on it’s not gonna happen again we got this which guy you want to work for which guy do you which which team do you want you want the team where people are taking ownership of the problem not blaming bill ownership is not just saying we own it ownership is actually owning it and that’s what makes it so powerful what makes it so powerful is if you actually own it then you actually look at bill beforehand and you go look at our team do we have any weaknesses yeah we did we got bill and bill doesn’t bill can’t get this part of the procedure done right here’s what we’re gonna do we’re gonna put bill into this other position that’s an easier part of the procedure we’re to make sure he knows how to do that meanwhile we’re Mike and Mike is gonna go down here and he nails this procedure and and he’s gonna spend by the way an extra 15 minutes a day during lunch he’s gonna get bill trained up so bill can eventually that’s the kind of thing you do on a team mmm yeah you made it pretty clear with juice which is kinda because it’s not that easy to understand or it wasn’t for me anyway I mean it would put it this way it was it was very valuable one I did understand this about extreme ownership I said this before too by the way so there’s there’s essentially two parts of it that make it extreme ownership well actually there’s three there’s the dichotomy but aside from the dichotomy this is what it is you take responsibility and then you say what you’re gonna do to fix the problem and then actually there’s a third part which is you implement the solution yes yes okay you identify it you own the problem you identify a solution for the problem and then you implement the solution yes that’s what you do yeah so a lot of times it’ll be especially in the beginning like I would just as far as me just kind of casually trying to understand it I would focus so much on taking responsibility you know it’s my fault you know kind of thing it’s like well the taking responsibility I mean is arguably more important than saying that it’s your fault kind of thing it’s essentially you’re taking responsibility of the solution as well yeah so if not you cuz in a way in a lot of practical cases you don’t even have to identify whose fault it is if you take responsibility of the solution like if I’m okay here so if there’s a football team right that’s like the epitome of team not the epitome but what a good example of teamwork never mind the SEAL Teams or whatever but well football is please it’ll be more simple because it’s it so let’s say okay we got a pass or whatever and boom the play the play starts and a guy gets through the front line let’s say the guard missed a block obvious right he missed it maybe he looked one way and he was supposed to look this way he was supposed to not pull and he tried to pull something he just made a mistake he just made a mistake he’s not in company just made a mistake whose fault is it guards fault okay but if the quarterback is gonna take extreme ownership he’s gonna be like hey no party hey this happened you know next time we’re I’m gonna remind them how this play that play you know this read 46 don’t curve twist or whatever you like you don’t pull and he probably be like on man I know I know don’t don’t stall them just like hey you don’t know ain’t no problem but we’re just not gonna do that anymore and then next time I call that play I’ll be like you’re good right I’m gonna check with them I didn’t check with him that first time you made a mistake my check with him he won’t make that mistake again I liked you when we were now we can whenever driving need me you know yeah it’s kind of one of those things the quarterback took responsibility for solving the problem or so then he was like okay Lutz that was my fault that making a big deal out of it being his fault no in his head it is you know it’s like okay this is my fault I should you know I should make sure things are clear kind of thing like the weather too you know your weather yeah well what bothers me the most about this question is I feel like I feel like I don’t do a good job of explaining this because what bums me out is someone whoever wrote this question and it’s a good question I get the question I get scared that the person that’s listening to the question goes no chuckle doesn’t quite get it he doesn’t quite get the fact that there was this one guy who was part of the team who made this mistake and no one you know we just we can’t hold his hand every time like that’s it’s not my fault it’s not our team’s fault when bill drop completely drops the ball that’s not my fault it’s not any one of the team’s fault and my point is is exactly what you are saying echo yes it is and if you look at it when bill makes the mistake himself he’s alone in a room and he’s supposed to you know he’s supposed to put part a on top a Part B and bolt them together that’s his part of the job he’s alone in a room doing that and he doesn’t do it right that’s 100% his fault the answer is no actually who’s in charge of training him who’s in charge of checking who not even in charge of who’s responsible we are a team that means we work together that means we confirm that we know how to do our individual parts of the job that means we check in say hey bill are you good hey bill let me check your first three that you do to make sure you understand what’s happening we do this together as a team and it makes me feel like a failure that people have a hard time understanding this and and I know it’s it can be a stretch it can be a stretch and you know I give all those examples hey the machine gunner shoots in the wrong direction whose fault is that it’s not the machine the machine gunner literally pointed the machine gun in the wrong direction pulled the trigger and shot in the wrong direction whose fault is it it’s the squad leaders it’s the fireteam leaders it’s the platoon leaders because they didn’t make sure that he understood his field of fire make sure he understood how to operate his weapon and by the way there’s a chance that the reason that bill screwed this up and bill is incapable of putting these parts together correctly and if that is the situation guess what is a responsibility of the team to either get him trained up to where he can’t do it or to tell the leadership that this guy cannot he’s incapable of doing the job and therefore he needs to not be here mm-hmm that’s what ownership is that’s what extreme ownership is I think I know what it is but what what makes it confusing or sometimes kind of kind of slippery like to grasp you know because it depends on who you ask so a lot of times the thing is when when it’s the machine gunners fault the thing is if I’m if I’m not even a human being I’m just the disembodied brain okay it’s the machine other’s fault and the leaders fault and that it’s everyone’s fault if I’m you know but but if you ask the individual person because he has some machine gunner Hey okay jockle you’re the machine gunner you shot in the wrong direction and I ask you whose fault is that what are you gonna say now leaders well well if your fault well let me let me tell you right now there are plenty of people and definitely plenty of machine gunners that when they shoot that weapon in the wrong direction you know what they say I didn’t get a clear brief from what the fields of fire were no one to I didn’t see the markers for what the range limits were I didn’t know where the other blue forces were no one told me so they’re looking at it like it actually isn’t their fault now you get some good machine and actually guess what when you have a guy that’s a machine gunner that says what wasn’t my fault it was my leaders fault you know what the leader says you know the leader says you’re a bad leader the the leader in this team the leader in this team you know what he says no it was the machine gunner swap yeah that’s right now guess whose fault it was it was no one’s fault yeah the machine gunner think is the boss’s fault the boss thinks it was a machine gunners fault now who’s gonna fix the problem the answer is no one no yeah when you get a good team the machine gunner goes my fault I should have paid better attention that leaders is my fault and now you have everyone taking ownership of the problems yes yeah and that way it’s supposed to be but that’s my point and that’s why it makes it’s never mind your disembodied brain that’s making decisions over here this is why it’s hard for people to understand that’s why sometimes and I’m with them I’m like I was there it’s kind of like it’s kind like you sure I’m trickin extreme ownership you know the typical I’m taking extreme ownership but we also build for folk but the reason that it is so hard because if I ask ok we have three guys one of those guys is a machine gunner the other guy’s a leader the other guy is just another team member he’s you know he’s dead the sniper something if I say hey this machine that I shot in the wrong direction individual meetings they all take extreme ownership all of them are down there in the game yeah all of them I asked you machine gunner whose fault is that what’s he gonna say took my fault ok next guy who’s faulted that fireteam leader my fault I shouldn’t tell them and their squad leader my fault I should have told them right yes so it the read now go back to the disembodied brain it’s kind of like wait wait wait wait so it’s like he did it it’s hard to grasp like that one guy it is his fault thing is not just his fault apparently because everyone said it’s their fault right so he was obviously his fault but wait it’s everyone’s fault kind of thing so when you’re the guy and you’re saying okay his fault in that little thing creeps in your brain that’s like yeah wait it is his fault yeah you know any and you’re wrong yeah yeah yeah and you’re wrong and I need to do a better job of explaining to Pete that to people because I see questions like this on a fairly regular basis which is but hey really you know there’s okay I get ownership but really yeah that’s what I mean it’s the but really that you need to check yourself on yeah because the reality is you’re responsible yeah you wait but if I’m responsible what about the machine he just said he’s responsible oisin gunner you’re well I know but the machine gunner said seemed saying though I think that’s the feeling that that Jeff you like creep in yeah and that’s gonna be a problem Yeah right you ever seen office space so really when you think about okay what’s the big thing I don’t see as the movie remember yes you know yes you okay let me let me remind you kay so in the beginning they were like hey Peter we’re putting cover sheets on the TPS reports from now on or we’ve been doing that you did you forgot to do that right so first Lumbergh comes his boss force Lumbergh comes is like yeah you know saying hey let me he didn’t do it in a dick way annoying for sure but he said hey this is basically a reminder did you get that memo we’re putting cover sheets on the TPS reports you sir I just forgot it was a one time thing no problem it’s like cool all you know so if you just do that do that that’d be cool and he’s like cool no problem so I’ll even give you another copy of that memo he almost like overdid it not almost he did overdo it so he left and then the other boss boom who’s like one level down he came same deal hey we’re putting did you get that memo TPS reports cover sheets now Poppa blah he’s like I got the memo I forgot one time thing is like yeah I’m just all those bosses were do doing just making sure the problem got solved right doing everything in their power even his father his friends were like hey what’s up I heard you guys you’re having problems with your TPS so they were just taking extreme ownership taking ownership of the problem trying to solve it but we give them crap about it who doing it for the movie in a movie somewhere yeah yeah because they’re trying to make it funny dude yeah I know I know but that’s kind of chronic but yeah I know but it’s ironic okay it is you know so I’m not even mad at Lemberg for that this thing