Jocko Podcast 253: The Ceiling You Can’t Break Through is Made By You. With Dave Berke

this is jocko podcast number 253 with dave burke and me jocko willing good evening dave good evening so last couple of podcasts 251 with leif babin 252 also dave burke we are continuing to make our way through this book right here guidelines for the leader and commander by general bruce clark leif and i made it up to page 13 dave and i last time we made it up to page 28 it’s 117 page book it’s just almost impossible not to find lessons and say to yourself i don’t need to worry about that section right there so to take these experiences from this leader and commander um and try and apply them and that this this book was the guidebook for my biggest mentor colonel david hackworth author of about face and there’s so many threads i just noticed that thread today or the on the last podcast the thread between general clark and making the men stand too and then them being okay with it once they almost got overrun and hackworth i just they’re the threads just connected on that last podcast so the threads keep getting connected if you want to see the threads of the way hackworth learned to lead which in turn taught me how to lead they all tie right back to general clark so that’s what we’re doing we’re tracking these lessons to their root cause to their root to the source and learning as we do it so part three of guidelines for the leader and commander by general bruce clark first section we get into today we’re on chapter five the conduct of inspections and i’ll tell you this as i was as i was parsing this book the first time i prepped for it i thought leif and i were going to get through half of it and i thought leif and i will do back-to-back podcasts we’ll do half in one podcast so we’d cover 60 or so pages and then we’d do half we just do do it back to back we made it through 13 pages so now as i’m reading it i’m looking for like the breaking points or where i can go okay this is a good section this section today the the end of this section we’re gonna cover today is it’s it’s it’s freaking epic i’m i don’t throw that word around very often so we’ll get there but this this chapter five starts off with the conduct of inspections and the first question is why inspect and then it says there is a saying an organization does well only those things the boss checks this truism originated insofar as i am concerned from a speech that i heard made by a vice president of one of our largest corporations this is not a new thought to anyone who has military experience because i have often heard it expressed as anything that has not been inspected has been neglected i changed the way i said that word to neglected but it made it sound a lot better so anything that has not been inspected has been neglected if these sayings are true and i think they are it follows that anyone who has an important position must be able to check in on or inspect the operations which he’s responsible leif when leif saw this i think i sent a picture of this to life because this is you know a line that i hear leif say a lot it’s a line that he heard me say a lot and we always attribute it to hackworth we always attribute it to hackworth and guess what it didn’t come from hackworth so how to inspect we’re talking about how to inspect civilians often think of a non-commissioned officer and officer as a demon inspector a demon inspector a good inspector is certainly not a demon but good inspectors are not plentiful in the army or out of it however to be a successful non-commissioned officer or a successful officer one should be a competent inspector this quality cannot be attained without a considerable amount of study planning and practice now this is interesting because i i wasn’t sure how much of this section to cover because inspections are not something that i utilize to any great extent as a leader when i was a leader i didn’t inspections was not one of my big tools and so i thought well you know um we’ll talk about it you know you certainly have to inspect things and i get that and that’s why i would say that hey an organization does well only things the boss tracks i’ve said that many times and i believe it but also i believe that if i have to inspect you that means i’m doing something wrong somewhere else you know what i’m saying like if i’ve got if my gig is i’ve got to inspect you that means i’m making some other kind of mistake somewhere because should i have to inspect that your weapon is ready yeah should i have to inspect that you’ve prepared for an operation should i have to inspect that you’ve done the work that you’re supposed to i shouldn’t have to inspect it if i’ve led correctly then you know why you’re doing what you’re doing and therefore you don’t really need to get inspected because you understand the why and you make things happen so i’ve always had that attitude it’s been very successful for me so i wasn’t sure how i wasn’t sure how much i was going to get into this whole inspection mode because what i don’t want to do is create a bunch of leaders that are going out there becoming these inspection happy you know dig down hey i’ll come and inspect you you know it’s funny with my kids [Music] if if you know my kids whenever my wife’s not around my kids they have to do everything right and so i’ll say are you you know what time will you be ready for inspection and they just get so they know what that means i’m going to inspect i’m going to inspect and it better be squared away so i didn’t want to create i don’t want to pass on this this idea that hey you guys got to be inspection inspection freak you know i never want people to think that the military is what the military is portrayed in boot camp which is you’re getting inspected all the time so that being said as i as i read through this i thought might better cover this because well you’ll see so here we go back to the book it is very seldom that i visit a unit an installation or a headquarters that i do not see things which are apparently not correct and which need pointing out which only need pointing out to get them promptly corrected so it’s very seldom that you go somewhere and you see something you go hey man why isn’t that right and all you have to do is tell them that it’s not right and they fix it i notice a similar situation in reading the reports of the inspector general inspections i often wonder why the responsible person on the spot has not noticed them and corrected them like you’re there why don’t you notice that this shortfall exists here’s one reason it may be because he has lived so close to them that his ability to notice them has become fatigued so what does that mean you’re not detached you’re not detached so you don’t see these mistakes but i am inclined to think that it is because so that’s a possibility but i am inclined to think that is because he has not conducted his inspections in a systematic and effective way so even when you’re not detached even when you’re totally engaged if you inspect correctly you should still be able to pick up on things that you would otherwise miss too often officers and senior uncommissioned non-commissioned officers have a general look-see rather than an inspection they go through their areas of responsibility without noticing things to correct and what is more without noticing good things for which someone should be complimented that’s one of the reasons why i had to cover this because an inspection isn’t about finding what i can nitpick about you it’s actually about what i can find to compliment you on totally different attitude my purpose for inspecting you is so i can find things that you’re doing awesome at and compliment you for them to become a good inspector requires as i have said before study planning and practice it requires study to be sure that he knows what is correct and what is not correct in the field of his responsibility it requires planning to prepare a schedule of inspections in such a way that over a period of time he has given the necessary attention to all aspects of his field of responsibility and then it requires practice in order to notice promptly whether the important things are correct or incorrect notice he said important things important things and you can absolutely get bogged down in things that are not important and in fact the military if you do if you’re not careful yeah you will start to focus on things that are not important you know on the last podcast you were talking about the fact that when you were a squadron commander your attitude was we are inspection ready at all times does that mean that we scrub the grout on the back side of the whatever bathroom in the third floor no because does that really matter is that an important thing no is it clean yes it’s clean absolutely it’s clean it’s fully functional it’s it’s totally ready but we’re not wasting time on it because it’s not really that important what is important the mechanics of the freaking aircraft yeah the cleanliness of the of the area where we’re actually doing work that keeps these machines up and running if i had my guys scrub the grout of the bathrooms prior to someone coming to visit i’m telling them that’s what i care about and that’s not what i want them to care about in the study phase most people find that a checklist is necessary think about that a checklist is necessary this ensures and you know you can tell and i’ve i’ve been picking this up as i’m reading this you know this this general clark he’s kind of an anal retentive dude for sure he’s about checklist he’s about inspections he’s got that nature to him so we need to keep that in mind we need to keep in mind that why is he why is this guy with all this experience why is he using a checklist why is that oh because it works this i i used to take every single piece of gear that i would take on trips and i would have a little checkbox next to it to make sure i had what i needed to have checklist y checklist this ensures that important things are not overlooked and assist the inspector until he has become so proficient through practice that he carries a mental checklist in his head there are inherent evils in the use of a checklist unless it is made out well it does focus great attention to the items listed which may cause other important things which may have been left off the checklist to be overlooked it must be remembered that to inspect is to emphasize which is what you just said to inspect is to emphasize if you are cleaning the grout on the third floor bathroom that’s what you’re emphasizing as important and and honestly do i want one minute of time when i’m running an f-35 squadron that has multi-million dollar aircraft that are life-saving machines do i want anyone scrubbing on the third floor in the third floor bathroom that never gets used and never gets seen no in the planning phase one should make a list of all items or phases of his responsibility on which he wants to check in most jobs this list will probably have 30 or 40 items on it it is manifestly impossible in one trip through a platoon company battalion battle group or similar area to check adequately all 40 items therefore he should keep this list and select from it three or four items each week or other interval when he inspects he should do a very thorough job on these selected items of course to do a thorough job he must have studied up on each item selected beforehand so that he knows what is right and what is wrong and what to look for by selecting a new group of three or four items each week he will over a period of time have covered all of them and by the time he comes to the end of the list will he will have really checked all the aspects of his responsibility and will become a master of his job what is more at that time if he has been effective as an inspector his responsibility will be carried out in a superior manner great you know what else is awesome about that what’s cooler what’s better what to your last to the last podcast about being about humanizing yourself to your troops what does a better job of humanizing telling you hey once every three months i’m going to come and inspect 40 items and it’s going to take eight hours and you’re going to be standing at parade rest the whole time or i’m going to come down once a week i’m going to check two or three things get to know you to talk to you game it’s it’s it’s obvious yeah and maybe even tell you hey you’re doing an awesome job down here this is good to go uh man the difference okay let me ask you this let’s say i’m a nit picker let’s say i roll down to your flight line and i see that there’s whatever some some dust on one of these pieces of tools and i walk over with my white glove and i inspect it and i hold it up to you and i go this is junk you’re a slob everything else about you’re a slop okay first of all what do i care about i’ve showed you that i care about dustin’s tools second of all are you inspired to do a good job for me no what if i come down and i look at your toolbox and i go man i can see the way you got your tools labeled that you are a professional that is legit you know what every time i’ve started up one of these aircraft i’m gonna feel good in my heart that you’re down here maintaining these aircraft thank you what does that guy do that guy’s polishing his tools man he’s polishing his tools so do you want to rule out a fear do you want to rule out of admiration god is that hard if you take us one step back and think of the outcome you’re trying to create the the real outcome that you’re trying to create and as a squadron commander you just described it i want 150 maintainers who are who their entire commitment to life is to make sure these airplanes are safe to operate that’s what i want a commitment to to making sure that we have these machines that are safe if i just think about that it’s actually not hard to go well which of these two ways is gonna get my guy my marine to think the way that i want him to think it’s really not that hard you just have to reverse positions and go how would i feel about the guy coming down doing this to me go oh well this makes sense that doesn’t make sense just do the one that makes sense and you actually will get the outcome that you want you know when you’re saying that i was thinking if you can get a little connection of hey hey uh jocko i noticed these tools up here like kind of dusty are these kind of a weight do you not use these are these not necessary this is a bunch of stuff that you got to manage that’s not important because these things are getting used like crazy hey is there a way to kind of relieve you of some just some connection have to go actually sir those things are terrible we don’t use them because they don’t work and they just sit over there and collect dust it’s just an example but if you can make the connection between what they’re doing to get that outcome that you want it’s actually not that hard to do man man all right back to the book whether he announces beforehand the items that he is going to check each you know that whole the whole conversation we just had that’s like something that we need to continue to talk about in that’s a i say this all the time is like it’s really obvious with ego right when you’re in it you don’t notice how stupid you look and when you step outside and you see someone else behaving that way you go oh this person’s an idiot their ego’s involved but when it’s you no this is me it’s different it’s different it’s different no one will notice i i want that attention i want that hey you didn’t recognize me i want you know what i want my black belt how’s that work yeah not good back to the book sorry whether he announces beforehand the items that he is going to check each time is a matter of individual choice some officers publishers publish their checklist to assist in training their subordinates good results have been obtained that way one basic rule however is that having once announced an inspection he owes it to the people underneath him to make it fair and thorough he also owes it to the people inspected the privilege of being commended for the good things found as well as criticism for the things which are not up to standard that whole idea if you just flip the i i’m inspecting you so i can see what you’re doing awesome inspect all the time totally i have never known a good inspector who did not acquire a highly developed curiosity and the ability to notice details this can come to anyone with practice on one occasion i visit a country where units of the army are stationed i was met at the airfield by a field grade officer of the local headquarters during the ride during the ride from the airfield unit i noticed that the civilian passenger cars we met had the drivers on the left side but the large trucks had the drivers on the right side this seemed odd to me so i inquired of my escort why this should be so he remarked that although having been in the country for over a year he had not noticed that i would surmise that he would not develop into a good inspector if you as either commander or a staff member follow these hints and rules you will not not be known as a demon inspector but as a competent and effective manager and then he says it one more time in big bold print an organization does well only those things the boss checks if you’re in a leadership role and you’re inspecting your people or if you want to take it a step fur further if someone else is coming in like the ig is this in the military the ig’s other group this inspector general group is another team that actually comes in to inspect you so whether it’s you or somebody else if i’m a leader and i’m inspecting my people i’m actually just inspecting myself it is it’s everything i see is a pure reflection of me so the idea that i’d be down there designed to criticize them for not doing the things i need them to do if you just have the mindset in your brain my inspection of my people is actually an evaluation of my own performance it can completely change the way you see what it is that you’re looking at the inspection is you and that was part of the reason as a commander in a squadron when i said listen marines if we have we have visitors you will not allocate additional time to cleaning i said that that was like a standing rule in my squadron if people are coming in to inspect it inspect our facility you will not allocate additional time to clean i want it to be as clean as it needs to be do what you would normally do and if they come in and this place is a dump then i clearly have not allocated the time not done the things i need to do but if they come in and go hey this place is good to go that’s a reflection of me as a leader not of my men or my marines it’s me who’s being inspected and just that view of what it is you’re actually evaluating yeah well check this out if i come down to inspect dave and instead of me blaming you for whatever shortfalls you have i say hey dave i noticed that your tools are not in the proper place and when they’re not the proper place they could get caught on the flight line they could ruin an engine someone could get hurt or killed i don’t think i’ve done a good job of explaining to you why this is important why this is so important so i’ve failed as a leader the fact that you’re not 100 squared away it’s my fault that’s why that’s right and you know that’s why that’s why this whole that’s why i’m scared of this whole idea a little bit right that’s why it scares me even when i say this an organization does well only those things the boss checks i can tell you that my seal platoon my seal task unit my echelon front does all kinds of things exceptionally well that i don’t check yeah i know that so that’s why i’m a little nervous about trying to make people into you know hyper inspectors i look at inspection kind of the same way as i look at accountability because they are very similar right and i’ve always said okay to me accountability is a crutch look it’s a tool like i’m not saying crutches are bad when you have a broken leg you got to get a crutch so you can get around inspections to me are very similar to in fact they are a form of accountability but if i if that’s my primary tool for leadership is just to hold everyone accountable and go inspect them all the time that’s this is not a good functioning tool it’s not the right way to use that tool if i’ve got 300 weapons inside tasking a bruiser and the only way i can make sure that they’re cleaned is by inspecting them twice a week that’s an embarrassment to me actually that’s an embarrassment to me it’s embarrassment to the platoon commanders it’s embarrassment to the platoon chiefs and it’s apparent to everyone in the freaking task unit because we all know why it’s important to keep our weapons squared away and if we’re not and the only way i can get them to do that is to inspect them it’s it’s wrong yeah they should know the culture that we have they should understand why it’s important and therefore i shouldn’t have to inspect a damn thing now all that being said you you certainly do i certainly did inspect the weapons in tasking bruiser i didn’t do it a lot i did it a couple times in the beginning just to make sure hey everyone gets it everyone knows but after three inspections in the first three months you think i went down there to make sure hey i’m just going to make sure by the way what kind of trust is that yeah what kind of troll am i telling my platoon that i trust them when i one of the platoons that i am i tell them leif that i trust him and say hey if i want to go inspect the weapons today he should be able to look at me don’t waste your time boss we’re good and you know what i’d say cool is there a chance and leif will talk about this he was he he gave a little too much slack one time and didn’t have you know one of his guys into a serialized inventory a piece of gear went missing and it’s like he was like yep that’s all me late said that’s on me i obviously a little too hands-off a little too decentralized so what does that mean i think maybe that’s why leif loves that term loves that phrase so much because he knows he had that bite him in the ass and he had to start up the level of inspections so it is a tool it is a tool don’t overuse it use it yes don’t over use it don’t overuse it it’s a lack of trust be careful yeah i’m actually over here kind of racking my brain i’m thinking about my time in command and i was trying to come up with a memory of inspecting something and i couldn’t i certainly couldn’t think of like a formal inspection that i did and at the same time i had a very strong sense in real time of whether my guys were working on the things i wanted them to work on now i did have a luxury and the answer i came to my head is when i went flying you’re talking about this idea of inspection um when you go fl before you get into an airplane you do what’s called a pre-flight which is an inspection because i start at the nose of the airplane i go all the way around i check a bunch of things before i get into the airplane now if i overshot the mark i could walk up to the the plane captain we called it the marine in charge of that plane and i could say is everything good to go and he could say yes and you know the truth is is that i actually trusted him i could climb up that ladder and go fly and come back but if every single time i came out to the jet i just climbed up and flew that airplane he over time he’d realize hey this guy’s not really paying attention and it’s not that he that this guy colonel burke doesn’t care it’s that or or doesn’t trust me said he doesn’t care as much it’s not that important and i don’t want him to think that and at the same time am i going to spend an hour walking around this airplane going hey devil dog come down here i see this thing i’m looking for things that are important general integrity a couple and once in a blue moon i go hey can you come down here for a sec hey this thing down here on this panel isn’t this i think it’s supposed to be down in this switch because i’m in the cockpit i get this reader and if i would just show him hey these things are important to me what you’re doing is important and i’m not looking to find ways to criticize you so i actually did inspections all the time but i did it in it i really couldn’t think of a time that in my years in command where i did an inspect this is an inspection be prepared for that inspection and at the same time everything i did as a leader was an inspection because everything i paid attention to is my signal to them of these things that matter i had a safety incident when i was running training there was a safety incident and my my boss i could see he wanted to he wanted to bring a little bit of the thunder right and so unannounced inspection of my my range safety officer qualification letters so i’m working at a training command where i’ve got whatever i got a hundred instructors seal instructors they’re all range safety officers all of them 100 and so i’ve already you know paperwork is not my best quality and uh the the inspector shows up and you know it was like uh i remember this it was a fleet like a fleet i want to say it was a fleet lieutenant and chief so they didn’t send seals over because seals would have been like hey jocko we’re going to be over there in an hour you might wanna you know little heads up they would have broke me out right yeah no bro these guys show up and oh you know i get the admin hey hey sir uh we have an inspection and i’m like an inspection okay what are we getting inspected so in comes this chief in this lieutenant you know we need to check your rso your range safety officer qualifications for all your instructors and i’m thinking okay uh in my mind i’m like whatever i don’t even know where these are right i’m complete i’m just i if i was i would have just held out my you know i could put my hands out to get cuffed you know like arrest me now and sure enough um my admin department says oh you want to see the you want to see the all the rso qualifications and make sure that every single person every single 100 people here that all have that all by the way rotate in at different times or all rotate now there’s not like any it’s not like a one unified group of people that’s all getting qualified at the same time no these are random guys that are coming and going at different times oh you want to see if all those hundred people are completely up up-to-date and qualified for their range safety officer um paperwork yeah that’s what we want to see okay cool come over here my admin team pulls them out and just starts yeah oh yeah what oh you want to look at you want to look at all them everything was 100 squared away 100 squared away i had nothing to do with it yeah i had nothing to do with it obviously the guy that was ahead of me before me had implemented a system or someone at some point implemented a system and there it was 100 squared away so that kind of thing i can take no credit for that but guess what as i that’s a situation where guess what i should have done when i showed up at that command i should have had a good list and b and you know what’s in this book there’s a there’s a thing in this book that talks about how you turn over with someone like what do you get ready that’s something when i showed up at the command i should have said okay think about what this command does oh we are range safety officers that’s one of our primary duties i should probably make sure that we are up to speed from an administrative perspective which is again what we already talked about on the last podcast from an administrative perspective because guess what if my boss finds out that none of my guys are qualifies are all over the place i should not i’m not qualified to be in that job that’s bad my guys there’s a reason for those range safety qualifications i should have had i should have inspected it so there’s an example of look i’m glad i got away with it you know i’m glad that somebody was more squared i’m glad that my own administrative department was more squared away than i was but i don’t like that feeling so something like that absolutely i should have i should have at some point said hey i’m going to take a look at our administrative records that way i feel comfortable and confident and also people realize that it is important because i didn’t place it by not by never inspecting it two things happened number one no one thought it was important and i’m just by the grace of god and good squared away discipline that they they did it and number two they never got any credit for doing that i never got to go to my admin department and said hey i want to look at the records and them say oh here you go boss and me say great job awesome so even though i’m kind of downplaying the use of inspections when you look at it as a positive tool it’s something that i should have used more i had such a negative attitude towards inspections i should have had a more positive attitude towards it and done them more often so i think that is that is where i’m walking away my lesson learned is inspections i think of them as a tool for accountability i should think of them as inspections are a tool for complementary activity with your troops for confirming that the right things are being focused on because guess what you know of the admin department you know how many rsos you know many range safety officers that were in the admin department take a guess admin guys or rsos yes none zero exactly they had no reason to be concerned about that no they had no reason i never made it important thankfully they were great squared away yeah you know sailors that got it done chapter six a successful manager advice from a civilian manager when i was and you know this is something i i’ve talked about before which is in the 90s and i don’t know if you remember this maybe you saw it maybe you didn’t in the 90s there would be a lot of hey what can the military learn from from civilian companies it was a lot like hey we want to send you out to ibm or whoever to see how they operate and yet a lot of those lessons that the that the civilian businesses a lot of the things that they did to operate was based on military opportunities but a bunch of guys that got out of world war ii and said hey this is what we should do right that the greatest generation came back and said i know how to run [ __ ] yeah watch this yeah so it goes both ways and and at some but then sometimes it’s like oh the military so the civilians after world war ii said oh we’ll take all these practices from the military and then here we were this book came out in 1963 hey let’s make sure that we’re learning from the corporate as well so advice from a civilian manager when i was taking my graduate work in civil engineering at cornell university the head of a very prominent and successful general contracting firm spoke to us on what made a contractor successful or really what kept him from going broke he said that if you went into a new area and wanted to talk about probably the most astute individual there you should seek out a general contractor who has been in business successfully for at least 10 years if you analyzed his methods of operations this is what you would find undoubtedly okay so here’s how this here’s how a civilian contractor runs a business he collected and kept up to date on detailed costs he had his staff available to him as needed expert advice in the fields of engineering finance purchasing taxation law et cetera and he used them so on his staff he had people he had experts and we needed him to talk to him he had competent foreman frontline leaders he took the time to orient and train them his relations with his workforce were good so that his turnover was small and provided key personnel with steady work he had good labor relations he obtained good equipment and kept it operating through a positive program of inspection maintenance and operator training he understood the problems created by special conditions such as storms weather temperature seasons flood climate and estimated and planned around them he had a good supervision and inspection setup to ensure quality prevent delays and to overcome quickly unforeseen obstacles and ensure acceptance without costly adjustment or doing over his plans always reflected much thought in economical methods of construction and then this last section says but most of all he was an expert on timing in that he programs in that he program the method the flow of the following to the job at proper times and proper amounts with proper specifications and proper quality in order that none was overlooked work was not delayed and none arrived too early and too much or too little and then he goes through a big list cost data plans decisions layout of the area flow charts supervision set up inspection he goes on financing workforce field offices field storage power and light requirements he goes through all this stuff and what he’s basically saying is he make a list make a list of what’s important and then he takes all that and says app um applicability to military situation i’m sure you noticed the great similarity between the management qualities required in a general contractor and those required in commit in the commander of a military operation steps in command or in managing a job one based on the mission or orders the commander determines isolates and defines the limits of the problem and every once in a while i get something where i go oh and this is one of those moments number two the commander turns the problem into an operation by issuing a clear and adequate directive for the conducting of it and what i really like about that is and you know we hear it define what the problem is define what the problem is if you don’t know what the problem is how are you doing anything else and if you think about any mission that we ever did in the military there’s a problem that we’re trying to solve any mission that we ever did there’s a problem hey there’s a bad guy he’s he’s killing americans that’s the problem we want to get rid of them okay how are we going to solve that problem here’s your operation with the help of the executive the commander monitors and guides the staff while it prepares while it prepares underlined by me not he prepares it prepares for issue by him or the staff coordinated instructions plans and orders for implementing the directive the commander follows up to see that plans instructions and orders are fully understood and carried out making the necessary modifications and additions as the operation progresses to accomplishment there you go so i’m i’m over here kind of hearing all this for the first time and and i’ve actually been struggling with these last two sections in my brain i’m struggling because i’m i’m i’m thinking about how i led in the marine corps and i’m like i didn’t do a lot of these things until you kind of explained that last part i was even thinking about your explanation of the previous chapter of the inspection of your range safety prop program and you like hey i kind of should have made this a priority and i’m like man i and i i’m not here to say i want to be really careful like you said like what he’s saying is right but i honestly don’t think i ever inspected anything i really don’t think i did that and what i keep coming back to is what he just described in my brain i just keep going to this this connection of decentralized command and culture i i know i created a culture by which everybody on my team understood that what they did was critical and i also knew my people well enough to know what they did and so i had an admin shop too i had a same group of admin marines with which their job was at admin marines i actually didn’t know the 39 things on the admin checklist sets of requirements you know who did my admin chief did and i spent enough time with him to make him know that those things were critical even though i didn’t know any of them individually the way he did and i’m thinking like how many times did somebody come in and check out my admin shop and i was like how do we do he’s like sure we what do you mean we crushed it we’re totally good to go we had no hits no no no deviations or whatever and it wasn’t because i ever inspected his shop and i’m running through this thing like man i didn’t have a checklist for inspection of my squadron but my squadron was kind of awesome because the people all knew hey hey marines we own these things nobody else in the in the squadron does these things but us and these things have to be squared away because at some point somebody’s going to come in somebody’s going to assess someone’s going to measure or evaluate and we owe this to the squadron because if we can’t do this it’s going gonna affect this and we’re not gonna fly airplanes and the skipper needs us to fly airplanes and i i’m i’m trying to think of a way to say it without disagreeing with what he’s saying until he got to the end which was hey here’s my job as a leader we have a problem we need to solve this problem you know who’s going to solve this problem you i don’t know how to fight i have no idea how to fix that and then when you’re done you’re gonna come to me and i’m gonna go okay that makes sense here’s what we’re gonna do to make sure this happens and so that thing has actually pulled the thread of the previous two chapters together where i’m over here going i think i might have sucked as a leader because i didn’t do any of those things he describing until he pulled it together which was they are the ones that are solving all those problems so it’s kind of a relief and i’m not here to say don’t i’m not here to say do what i did i’m just kind of almost embarrassed like yeah i didn’t do any inspections of squadron commander at a time where there was more scrutiny on my command than probably any squadron in the in possibly the military because of how high profile it was and i’m thinking should i’ve been running around inspecting all my people well i’ll answer for that for you in my opinion because it sounds like you and i did the exact same freaking thing right you and i did the exact same freaking thing now the reason that i regret that i never inspected my admin department’s tracking of rso the reason i regret that there’s two reasons number one when it came when that inspection came unannounced inspection i was like fingers are crossed i have no idea and if i was a betting man i wouldn’t have bet on the win i wouldn’t have bet on that i wouldn’t have bet on zero yeah no deviation zero deviations which is what we got so i’m i’m i don’t like that but even more important than that is i had people that worked for me that did an exceptional job an exceptional job and i never gave them i mean look after the after we got randomly if they if that inspection never would have happened i i never would have given them any credit right i never so i’m i i’m i would have gone back in time if i could do it again you know what i do as i go hey guys i’m going to come and check out some of the stuff in admin today yeah and i would have said show me these rs show me these give me hey smith jones and white give me their rso records right now and they pull them out and i go man you guys are on top of things thank you thank you and now i’m just that much better so that’s why i feel like inspections is a tool not so much a tool to make sure that people are doing it’s a connection yes it’s an opportunity to complement people it’s not it’s an opportunity for hey man if i never inspect those things how important is it to me not not it’s not very important obviously yeah guess what when the when my commanding officer comes over to inspect guess how important number one thing on my freaking list and i had let it i had i only here’s the next part what trumps above the inspections and the hierarchy of leadership is obviously culture so you at your squadron and and i’ll give you some credit but i will give freaking credit to the good old united states marine corps which is you never said a word but those marines knew this is my job i will be freaking ready this is what i do so there’s a culture inside of the marine corps which you enhanced inside your your squadron that everybody knew this is what we do there that’s what we’re looking for that’s what we’re trying to do yeah and and hopefully we don’t have to inspect as a negative hopefully we inspect it in a positive way and i think that’s the genius of what he’s saying as i’m thinking about it is that if you hear the word inspection 99 people out of 100 see that’s a negative word that’s a bad word the inspection is not something you want we don’t want to be inspected there’s a negative connotation and the negative connotation is true if the things your people are doing wrong is a reflection of them and the things your people are doing right is a reflection of you and he’s saying the exact opposite the things your people are doing right is a reflection of them and you should tell them they’re doing awesome and the things they’re doing wrong is a reflection of you and that alone just reversing what it actually means to inspect and the conclusion of that and that i think has been the part i’ve been wrestling with this whole time listening to it and when what he’s saying is exactly opposite of the standard connotation of inspection so anyway that’s pretty cool inspections should be positive not negative chapter seven leadership commandership generalship and then in quotes followership i can assure you that it’s and so this is addressed to students of the command and general staff college fort leavenworth kansas 1962-1963 course reprinted with permission from armor magazine why don’t i subscribe why don’t i have a subscription to armor magazine here we go i can assure you that it’s a great privilege for me to return to the command and general staff college even though this is the first time i have been permitted to be on this platform in civilian clothes i’ve been here over a long period of time from time to time i entered here as a student 24 years ago i’ve taken great interest in the command and general staff college because i was able to work in the field of army education on several occasions i don’t know that there’s any institution in america that is so favorably known worldwide in military circles as your college and while i can’t think of many things that i contributed to the college i did contribute one thing that i think was important you can see he’s got a little little humility i can’t think of anything i’ve done but it’s one thing that i think was important i was responsible for changing the name of it from the command and general staff school to the command and general staff college now you might think that to be a play in semantics but it isn’t it’s important because after all you gentlemen here are getting the equivalent of your master’s degree in your profession i wanted to just talk to you with you this morning i didn’t come here to deliver a lecture i came to talk to you about certain aspects of the job that you’re learning to do after all this is the command and general staff college and that name was not arrived at without some thought and of course it sets forth your mission for being here i was a troop commander for 13 straight years before i retired and that encompasses the career of a great many people a great many of you people so that i didn’t come here today to play over again the record that i think a lot of you have heard me play many times you have heard a very good course at the college in leadership and i assure you that you’ll that i’ll not repeat that or go into the attributes that are required in the field of leadership i think they are very well known they’re really not very complicated the art of leadership is only complicated to theorists it’s not complicated at practical men there are only a few really a very few simple rules and precepts that build the makeup of character that are necessary to be better than a satisfactory leader and i’m sure that each one of you has passed that qualification or else you wouldn’t be here i would like to go further into this particular field and point out to you that i believe we have become an exact and in exact in the use of terminology because i was reading last night a memorandum which said that we teach leadership at the command and general staff college from the level of the division commander up i take issue with that statement for the reason that leadership is a peculiar art or a technique in itself and a division commander is not basically a leader he is a commander and i’m going to point out to you that you should be adjusting your thinking to a different point of view i will talk to you briefly about what i call commandership and generalship which are quite different from being a leader it’s pretty interesting right yeah all right this one got my attention man i’m reading this i’m like oh wait a second where are we going yeah where’s he going with this if you will go to the title of the people who you are in charge of in military echelon starting at the bottom you’ll first come to a squad leader then a platoon leader and every other title after that has the word commander so for those who don’t know you got you got a fire team leader you got a squad leader you got a platoon leader and then you get to a company commander or even a task unit commander why was that done there are no company leaders there are no battalion leaders they’re only company battalion and brigade commanders and then you get to division commanding generals which is a further progression i’d like to point out to you that i hope you all will graduate with an appreciation of the transition that is necessary to go from leadership to commandership i hope you don’t think this old man now is involved in semantics because i hope i’m not it’s really an important thing and a lot of people have never bridged it they’re still exercising leadership as company commanders or even as they get higher and by doing so they’re bypassing or poorly using their subordinate commanders and staffs just to take a break so i’ve talked about this many times there are people that do a they were a great platoon commander task unit commander is like not quite there seal team commander they’re not good we’ve worked with businesses where you had this ceo founder like this one we see a lot founder ceo hey does an amazing job forming that business building that business all of a sudden it’s time to really grow they don’t they can’t make the transition they don’t make the transition and they have to bring in a new person to be the ceo a person with these other attributes so we this is something that’s all i was thinking about i was like oh okay i remember the ceo that brought the company brought this particular company through this particular situation and then got to that level and they they had to move them into some different role and they had to bring in somebody that had this next this next level of leadership characteristics continuing on you came here to learn commandership or generalship and that involves the proper organization and utilization of subordinate commanders and staffs to establish what you want done with your command and the technique is much different than the technique of getting in front of a platoon and saying follow me which is leadership but when you’re in a different position with reference to your soldiers then you become more or less a director and the technique of dictat directorship is far different than the technique of saying follow me i’m so glad he he he gave a he broke this down i will give you an illustration suppose you have a horse at a point a that you want to move to point b you take hold of the halter shank and he follows you down the road you’re the leader so there you go hey that’s what you are you you take that bridle and you lead this thing down the road you’re the leader but if you get on and ride him you use different techniques you use different aids you use your legs and other things that i learned in the ancient days when we had writing at west point to accomplish your purpose and i would say that might be termed commandership you’re then the commander of the horse you’re not his leader but the purpose is the same to move him from a to b now if you’re affluent enough to own a sulky and i had to look up sulky had no idea a sulky is a carriage it can be a one person carriage but it’s two wheels if you’re affluent enough to own a sulky and drive him with the reins and with a whip in your hand then that’s general ship and i bring that up because it isn’t too far-fetched in the problem that i would like to bring with you i will give you a historical example of a fellow who was a tremendous leader during the civil war perhaps one of the greatest leaders of the civil war and i use that term in the sense that i have used it up to now so he’s talking about a leader one of the greatest leaders but he’s saying in the term that i’m using a great leader in the civil war was hood who commanded the texas brigade he was a most fantastic troop leader and sometimes if you’d like to look into it further there’s a very good book entitled the gallant hood hood was a leader of the old school in front of his men with a saber in his hand that’s how he handled his brigade and it was an effective organization it was inevitable that a man with such capabilities would be promoted he went up rapidly throughout the war he ranked next to lee at the end of the war but when the war was over he had lost command it was a sorry ending to a man who had never mastered the transition from leadership to commandership to generalship when you move into the field of commandership as against the field of leadership you go to the techniques or the art of how you use your subordinate commanders to get the most out of them the art and the technique of how you organize and use your staff in order to enable you to carry out the job of directing organizing and handling operations so i’m just gonna we i’m gonna rap through this whole thing because there’s so much to talk about hey well let me pause this is what i find interesting and he’s gonna come back to it but i’ll give you a foreshadowing he’s going to come back to it i think that as he looks back at his career you gotta remember this guy joined the when he was when he was a kid and he was in world war one and think about how things changed by his own admission in between world war one and world so when he was world war one and post world war one he was in his mind this leader right that was gonna lead from the front that was gonna make things happen as the nature of war became more dispersed all of a sudden you had to have a little something that we call decentralized command he can’t be in front of his unit the whole time and that would be the same and i think as he became more mature and as he got older hey look when you took a well well it’s kind of hard for well i talk about this with life life will say like hey what you know i wish i would have done x y and z when i was uh when when i was the assistant platoon commander leif could write a book about the things he wishes would have changed when he was assistant platoon commander for sure he was fresh out of the fleet you know naval academy fleet and now his son he’s he’s in a seal platoon right do you think that do you think that if he went back and did that right now do you think he would do things a little bit differently sure absolutely we all would yeah we all would do that and so here we have a guy that went through the entire rank structure of the army the entire thing and as he got older and got better and got more experienced i would think he’d say this is what i should have done when i was a platoon commander but i didn’t and here’s what i would do differently but maybe because the wars were different and it was more centralized and it wasn’t dispersed everyone was together so there’s a there’s a i think what i see is him is him saying listen it was it’s a different thing whereas i look at it now and say wait a second it might have been a different thing for you but if you could go back knowing what you learned eventually you might say hey i actually would have led differently and i’ll tell you right now even in a platoon even in a freaking squad even in a fire team the techniques that he’s going to talk about what what’s better if you’re in charge of a platoon what’s better grabbing the grabbing the reins and pulling them down or is it better to guide them and let them run yeah the answer’s so obvious [Music] but he digs in a little bit chain responsibility and also you must realize as you go up in various echelons of organization of the army from the squad on up you become increasingly removed from the individual soldiers and your influence on the individual soldier is no longer carried by an eyeball to eyeball approach it is carried on through the echelons of your command down to him and you become increasingly just an image to him which you develop in several ways but you get to the field of proper staff organization and staff relationship because that is very important part of commandership and generalship what is that saying what it’s saying is when you’re in a leadership position as you go up in ranks you’re right you don’t have eyeball to eyeball any all the time guess who you do have eyeballed eyeball ball with your subordinate leaders and your subordinate leaders have to nurture those close personal relationships with their troops so that that influence that you have as the commander is felt all the way down through the front lines back to the book in your recent military review there’s an article on faulty staff relationships i hope it will cause you to give a little thought to that problem because it is important one you come to one of the most important parts of commandership and leadership and that is establishing a chain of responsibility so that every man in your organization knows who he works for and who works for him that’s cool i get that we let’s call the chain of command that is basic how many organizations have you been in where that wasn’t known i’ve been in several i had no idea who i worked for or who out who or or who made out my efficiency report after all and this is one of those things where i i get a little cringy as my kids as my daughters would say after all there’s one basic rule in the army that you can’t violate and i over a period of 44 years have tried to violate many of them i have been successful in a few but this one i have never been successful in and that is you work and devote your loyalty to the man who makes out your efficiency report and the man who endorses it if you don’t do that you’re never going to be a general so to me this is wrong to me relationships are stronger than the chain of command yeah and luckily he’s going to counter this he’s going to counter his own statement later of course establishing a chain of responsibility is just as important in years and look this is proven out by hackworth who built these incredible relationships and that’s how he ran things establishing a chain of responsibilities just as important in your staff as it is in your command if you don’t have that your headquarter your headquarters mills around and creates what i call command and staff inertia that is a state of frustration and lack of purpose that exists in many military staffs okay people got to know what’s people got to know the chain come out for sure then of course it comes down to the art of commandership or generalship as to how you issue your directives or how you project your desires and will down through the chain of command oh does i i read that wrong as to how you issue your directives or how you project your desires and will down through the chain of command it comes out in directives and so forth which is an art within itself and which i am sorry to say we sometimes don’t do very well we could do a lot better when we’re when we’re doing that in the field i’ve worked at times for a commander for whom i felt i wasn’t doing a good job because the truth of the matter was i didn’t know what he wanted me to accomplish okay second law of combat simple simple clear and concise if i don’t know what you want me to do there’s no way i can accomplish it and by the way whose fault is that it’s my fault if i don’t know what my boss wants me to accomplish what do i do i raise my hand and ask my boss what do you want me to accomplish what’s the mission here what are we going to get done what’s the end state what’s your intent next section improving your unit now we get to the point of making progress as a commander i can’t conceive of anybody who takes over a com a company a battalion a brigade or a division a corps a field army who doesn’t sit down and say to himself how i impress upon my superiors the men who make out my efficiency report that i am a good commander once again you know you get a little bit of that i’m looking to get promoted which i don’t like how do i do that i’ve seen it done every way that you can think of in my career but i would suggest to you that the best way to do it in the military organization is through a little exercise of what i call is through the exercise of what i call little pluses of making a little progress in every field every day over a period of time if you do that your organization will tighten up your organization will become good and you’ll gradually come up with the understanding and the reputation of really being a good commander you will also not create turbulence which detracts from the effectiveness of your unit so i like this idea doing little things get a little bit better every day but then he goes into this with that that thing when he talks about turbulence he goes into it i’ve seen people walk into an organization and immediately start to make headlines i would like to point out to you a great truth in the military that he who lives by headlines is destroyed by headlines remember that if you start seeking headlines and creating images of yourself as a superman pretty soon somebody will find a hole in your armor and when he does he will certainly give it to you that follows from the rule about the monkey who climbs up a pole the higher he gets the more of his rear he shows the people who are below him and that often goes for a person who upped the chain of command in the echelons of the army so good that’s i totally agree with that now he gets into this section it’s called channels of suggestion i hope that i have impressed upon you that there is a technique in commandership and generalship techniques that are different from leadership although the characteristics of the individual as to honesty and sincere sincerity and all those other things are just as applicable so honesty’s important sincerity all these other things are important they’re the same leadership commandership and gender all the same but he says you have to master the transition as you go up there’s a little different technique being a company commander than that of being a battalion commander you have a bigger staff you have more senior subordinate commanders as you go up and that of course increases we talk about chain of command i have conscientiously tried throughout my career to live and conduct my job in such a way that i didn’t exercise control of my organization through channels of command i exercised it through channels of suggestion so instead of using the chain of command he’s he’s saying exactly what we say instead of saying look i’m in charge i’m the highest ranking guy you’re gonna do what i say he’s saying don’t do that as much as i can throughout my career i’ve exercised command through channels of suggestion and i have a note here that says ha relationships [Laughter] i think it is very important that i only use the channels of command when i wanted to discipline somebody and i didn’t have to do that very often i figured that if i he’s just putting himself on report i figured that if i couldn’t run an organization by getting things done by suggestion that i’d failed as a commander i commanded the troops of 12 nations as a corps commander in korea i didn’t have any strong chain of command between me and the allied troops if i put out something that i wanted done that violated their national ideas they didn’t pay very much attention to it in that case what are you going to do next well guess what you don’t have to be a foreign army for that to make sense that happens in a freaking platoon that happens in a fire team if i come up with dumb ideas that don’t make any sense that are what does he say that violates their ideas and they don’t want to do it oh you can force them to do it but what does that get you i was down at the infantry school and commented on this not very long ago and one captain got up and said general i have listened to very i’ve listened very carefully to your channel of suggestion approach and i’m familiar with it i served in your command in europe and i think you have to be a very powerful suggester to make it work maybe that’s true he says and and the note i have here is here’s a good way to suggest here’s the most powerful way to suggest listen listen to your other well this whole time i’m thinking is it is it his suggestions or other people’s suggestions i was thinking he was talking the power of suggestion is hey jocko what do you think we should do here here’s the problem here’s the power of suggestion hey dave what do you suggest yes because i’m gonna listen to it yeah and we’re probably gonna do it i mean unless it’s just a travesty of a plan we’re gonna do it so definitely some things to think about in there and it’s and you know as i look at this look guess what uh what’s that saying we stand on the shoulders of giants right this guy had to do his whole military we get to lead we get to take what he puts out this power of suggestion which hackworth then took even further and now we got to take that and go even deeper not even deeper but further we got to expand that idea of decentralized command and of listening to what people have to say and the fact that hackworth freaking loved his draftees because his draftees would call [ __ ] on him he says that in the book my draftees they would call [ __ ] if they didn’t agree with something so i loved them for it not i hated them for not shut up and do what i told you to do thank you thank you for your suggestion that my idea is stupid what do you suggest and he continues to kind of dismantle some of these earlier statements this section’s called followership i want to get from there now to another subject and i’ll end up and then i’ll end up my presentation that is the topic that fits right along with leadership what i call followership everybody as a leader or a commander of any echelon is also a follower you’re never you never get in the hierarchy of the army to a point where you’re not a follower the chief of staff of army is a follower he follows the desires of the directives of the president secretary of the army secretary of defense the joint chiefs of staff and so forth even the president of the united states is a follower in that he follows public opinion what you are today each one of you is the result of 35 to 40 years of following whereby you have taken into your makeup ideas instruction and concepts and through a process of discernment acceptance and elimination you have stored away in your makeup certain characteristics ideas and procedures that and you have discarded others in that process of sifting through the good from the poor or what you consider the good from the poor you have created as of today your present makeup and character which is you as an individual if you have attained good characteristics and a storm of good ideas learning and concepts that you can use effectively in the future you have been a good follower if you haven’t you’ll not be a good leader nor a good commander it follows from that that you must through this process of discernment and storing away create in yourself a balanced man whereby you can handle concurrently all the different parts of the job you don’t concentrate on one and forget the other such as maintenance you don’t concentrate on marksmanship and forget something else the best organizations in the american army are the organizations that are good or better in everything they may not make any headlines they may not be superior in any one thing but they are our best organizations these are the type of organizations that we want to develop in the army i have tried to so that that idea of making headlines is a great point this idea here reminds me of the gray man they used to say going through buds they would they would say if you were the great man like you don’t want to be the number one swimmer because then people will be watching you you want to kind of like fit in i have tried to lead your thinking through the transition from leadership to commandership and generalship and to point out to you wherein followership is very important in this process of your development this next section is progressing up the pyramid of life so all of a sudden this just turns into like a life gig and when i was saying that the end of this section that we’re gonna cover gets gets gets really important this is sort of where i’m starting it has been truthfully said that at the end when one looks back on his life he should measure his success by the number of rungs up the ladder of life he has climbed since he started and not by the particular rung on which he is finished the basic concept of our government under the constitution is that all men are created equal all men are created equal this means not that all men are created equal for they are far from it it only means that all men should have equal opportunities and rights under our laws this concept is a great step in the progress of man when any group of men such as army officers lawyers doctors engineers scientists clerks or accountants start out in any corporation or any other organization they fit into a pyramid which is broad at the base but becomes smaller and smaller as they approach its peak assuming that those people in each category start with approximately equal backgrounds there is a selection process which starts as soon as they rise in the pyramid of life as soon as they tend to rise in the pyramid of life so we’re talking about this hierarchy which i know obviously this uh this might bring some thoughts of jordan peterson and hierarchy of competence and that’s kind of what we’re talking about here also assuming that and and by the way he’s making he says assuming that people start the same approximate backgrounds right that’s a big freaking assumption but don’t worry he’s going to get back on that but that’s a huge assumption and it’s probably an assumption that they didn’t recognize as much back in 1950 also assuming that the selection of those who rise in the pyramid of life is based upon ability experience and the need for special capabilities and leadership how does one prepare himself for being chosen to advance in competition with his associates and colleagues so he’s talking about how how do you go up that pyramid how do you how do you ascend the the dominance hierarchy everybody who is a leader director or commander at any echelon of an organization is also a follower he never gets to a point where he is not and he goes he repeats himself here the the chief of staff the army is a follower he follows the desires of the director of the president that they are the secretary of the army even the president is the united states of the united states a follower in that he follows public opinion what each one of us is today is the result of years of following whereby we have taken into our makeup knowledge ideas instruction and concepts through a process of discernment acceptance and elimination we have stored away in our personal ability certain characteristics ideas and procedures which and we have discarded others as not being worthy so he repeats that section right there he’s making it he’s trying to re-emphasize that point in the process of sifting the good from the poor or what we consider the good from the poor we have created as of today our present makeup and a character which is ours as individuals if we have attained good core characteristics and a storeroom of good ideas learning techniques and concepts that we can use effectively in the future we have been good followers and you know it’s nice to compare this to you know you and i covered the the marine corps document learning and really when he’s talking about following what he’s really talking about is learning he just said you gotta if you can take that and apply it then you’ve been a good follower yeah yeah we have a good basis for being successful leaders and in all probability we will advance a good follower is able to react quickly and effectively to an emergency or a crisis hence he has the potential to become a fine military commander this process must be continuous during our active careers if we are to continue to grow in judgment and balance again this reminds me that marine corps like you are learning that’s what we’re doing and i have a note here that that says that this section that i’m about to read is the onl this whole this whole thing starts to come together for me some call this experience but it is more than that it is the constant and critically sound evaluation of experience that causes us to progress in stature and move up the pyramid of life so it’s not just about experience experience by itself barely even helps you what you have to do is you have to take that experience and you have to constantly and critically evaluate it and that’s what that’s what will make you progress so hey man you can just go through you can just go through life you can experience all kinds of crazy things and leadership challenges but if you never critically assess what you did what you learned how you performed you know you and i were talking during the break and you said something like i can’t believe that i just didn’t get issued this book you know as a as a second lieutenant when i graduated from the basic school or whatever and we had a quick conversation about the fact that it’s one thing to pick up a book and read it it’s another thing to have a actual conversation and have context and have thoughts around a book and i think that’s probably one of the reasons why people listen to podcasts is because not because i’m sitting here doing audiobook right i mean this isn’t an audio book of this book this is my thoughts your thoughts and and general clark’s thoughts and sometimes we’re right sometimes we’re wrong sometimes we agree sometimes we disagree but what we are doing when we do that is we’re constantly critically evaluating the experience that he had and then we’re constantly we just you and i just did a freaking 30 minute evaluation of the fact that we inspected our admins or not and lessons were learned yeah so that’s what we’re doing this idea of learning all the time and the more important man the the idea of you know what look we talk about all the time at echelon front you got to do a debrief you got to do a debrief you have to do a debrief when you get done with operation win or lose you got to do a debrief that’s what you have to do continuing on in early in life some members of society fall and this is where we just start getting into this broad conversation and this is this is sort of the last section here early in life some members of society fall into limited categories due to handicaps of opportunities health and physical and mental ability these people start life with ceilings over them that few are able to pierce okay so so there’s certain situations that you can be born into that are gonna be challenging and you and they’re really hard to get through and he gets that and then he goes on to say but how about those whose opportunities education and apparent ability seem to start off on common equal footings as they begin to move up the pyramid of life each one eventually reaches his own peak and levels off at various distances from the top very few have an apparent ceiling over them at the start but they develop ceilings at various levels as they go along so we’re what’s up so now we’re talking about this pyramid we got this pyramid that we’re trying to climb up and some people are they have a legitimate ceiling in life whatever they were born they’ve got some situation that is a pr is a is a is a ceiling that they’re going to reach and it can be very hard to break through that but now he’s talking about hey look now you got people that there’s no real ceiling everyone’s on equal footings and then he says each one eventually reaches his own peak and levels off at various distances from the top very few have an apparent ceiling over them at the start but they develop ceilings at various levels as they go along what causes this leveling off process on the part of an individual what factors tend to cause this ceiling to form over him and then he’s got this list he’s got this list of of factors that cause you to reach your limitation that cause people to reach their limitations here they are wrong decisions wasted opportunities deterioration of attitude and enthusiasm excesses lack of self-con self-control lack of honesty of purpose tendency toward lowered standards poor ethics loss of self self-respect loss of motivation and ambition lack of ability to express himself orally or in writing poor associations wrong scale of values failure in carrying out responsibility lack of loyalty up or down unfortunate family situations deterioration of physical condition bad habits poor financial management disregard of rules procrastination failure to keep up with progress in his field so what’s amazing about that list let’s see i don’t know how many there are there’s maybe one lack of ability to express himself orally in writing so that is can you get better at that yes you can but there are some people that don’t have the same capability look wrong decisions who’s that on you wasted opportunities you deterioration of attitude and enthusiasm you excesses and lack of self-control you lack of honesty and lack of purpose you tendency toward lowered standards you poor ethics you loss of self-respect you loss of motivation and ambition you lack of ability to express himself earlier in writing okay we can improve it but you may have a limited there poor associations you wrong scale of values you failuring carrying out responsibility you lack of loyalty up or down you unfortunate family situations that’s something we don’t always have control over deterioration of physical condition that’s something we don’t always have control over it’s something that we also do have control over depending on what that deterioration is being caused by if you have some kind of a disease that you can’t control look that’s one of those things but oftentimes there’s things that we can do to make sure we maintain our physical condition bad habits that’s you poor financial management that’s you disregard the rules that’s you procrastination that’s you failure to keep up with progress in his field that is you so that is there’s a lot of stuff to that we can take ownership of now this this whole section closes out with this this following statements here poor faul poor fellowship and i think that’s supposed to say followership poor followership is a great contributor to ceiling formation and again the way he’s using followership to me is he’s talking about you know the ability to learn the ability to take ownership of what’s happening once the ceiling is formed or starts to firm form is difficult to break through a few do break through despite handicaps however there are those who would try to dispel these ceilings by social laws and values meaning they want to blame other people to be sure they are partially successful on the lower reaches of the pyramid of life but not as they reach the apex of the pyramid they only warp the shape of the pyramid at certain levels the bible says that many are called but few are chosen it is ever thus as we try to progress up the pyramid or ladder of life yeah so with that probably a good place to stop this one that’s just such a such a such an important way to look at things you know and and you know we always talk about extreme ownership from a leadership perspective and leading organizations and leading teams but you know extreme ownership is about you it’s about your life it’s about what you’re doing and we have a lot more ownership over what we do and where we end up and where we end up in this ladder in this pyramid then some people would have you believe that list you know almost sort of seems like a hap hazard list like almost they’re they’re not related those things he was running through and then the common thread is he basically just he captured almost all those things are things that we impose upon ourselves which is which in in in some sense it’s like it’s kind of crazy because as i dissect what he’s saying i’m like well how much control do i have over that and for almost all of them it’s a hundred percent not like hey this there are components and i think you actually did a good job because yeah yeah you know what life happens and you say this on the podcast all the time life happens and sometimes those things in life that happen most certainly limit what we can do it’s a fact that those things do happen and even inside of the sort of the the threat of all those is when you he said wasted opportunities i mean you want to talk about someone who’s taken stock of his life that’s actually kind of achieved inside this pyramid that he’s talking about he’s at the top of this pyramid man that is a humbling series of things that he’s calculated really about himself number one wrong decisions number two wasted opportunities yeah i mean there’s some startling things inside there and probably probably for me what he did because again i struggled this section a lot more than the last one because there’s part of like where is he going with this stuff why is he even saying that and when he kind of brings a full back the thing that he did is this is a guy that contemplated the things that he has done and why he did them and dissected the mistakes that he’s made i mean if there’s a mistake that i made throughout my career was not spending enough time dissecting why i did the things that i did and you know that that is a that is a self-imposed limitation that if you don’t think about why the meaning if you don’t learn from the things that you did and why you did them that is a self-imposed limitation god that that list is that is a humbling list of things to think about yeah it’s a it’s a it’s a heavy hitter dude it’s a heavy hitter wrong decisions number one but but even then like there’s there’s an ego thing of like well yeah i mean you know people make people make wrong i mean you don’t not every decision is right well pull that back a little bit who who’s that on the mistakes that you made who whose fault is that not not yours that i aim at a bad call over here um so yeah i mean i was struggling at the beginning of each of those parts like where how is he going to pull this back and it reminds me of something that you and leif reminded each other about was when we’re talking to tom fife and i’m sitting here listening to him and he says something and i’m like man that didn’t seem like you were why did you say that man that’s not what you’re going to say and then he pulls that back full circle of like how clean he made that at the end when in the beginning i’m thinking where are we going here yeah that was like a four minute evolution where i was we were we were i don’t know probably a third of the way into a really what was going to be a long podcast and i’m thinking oh well i guess his leadership principles don’t really mesh up with mine and totally that’s real bummer because he’s saying hey you tell people what to do and they just do it because they’ve been trained that way and that’s okay you know they just they’re just obedient because they’re in the army and for three minutes i sat there and thought dang i guess this isn’t and then after three minutes he goes but these guys would never do what you told them to do just because you told them to do it yeah they needed to understand why they were like yes yes totally thankfully thankfully and i think that’s kind of the transition that you see you know someone like general clark making towards the end of his career is looking hey this is general ship you want to lead by suggestion you won’t have to bark orders of people if if they’re not taking an issue of making things happen you’re doing something wrong that applies i’m telling you that applies to a platoon it applies to a squad it applies to a business it applies to a big business it applies to a a nine person business it’s all the same and how how comforting is it how how good is it to think oh i have control over all these things that is actually completely awesome all these problems in my life all these see all these things that they’re all self-imposed which means i actually have control over all of them yeah i don’t know once again that’s the cool premise of extreme ownership and it’s cool when you apply it to your organization because you say hey this is this is on me i’m going to make these changes for our company for our team so we do better but man the way it hits you as a human when you look at all these problems that you have and you go oh this problem is assailing me this problem’s attacking me this problems is gonna destroy me and say oh wait you know what i’m gonna take ownership of those problems i’m gonna get those things sorted out and look are there some outliers sure right there are there are can you can you get a horrible disease can can things that are completely beyond your control hit you yes they can of course of course and and you know those are then that then it turns into okay how are you gonna respond to those things that are out beyond your control but so many things that we face are just straight on us wrong decisions wasted opportunities lack of self-respect very seldom does the ceiling come from others very seldom does the ceiling come from other most of the time the vast majority of time the limitations in our life are exactly that they are our limitations that we imposed on ourselves so i think that’s a a good connection that he makes that even though this book is about leading others we cannot lead others if we can’t lead ourselves and if we can’t do the right things ourselves then we have no one else to blame but us all right good place good place to stop for now and i think speaking of bad habits right we can have some bad habits well we also want to have some good habits we want to speaking of lack of self-control we want to have self-control speaking of bad decisions we want to make good decisions let’s think of some ways to get us on the right path for all these things we got jocko fuel which is a bunch of supplements joint warfare krill oil discipline discipline go vitamin d cold war molk which is protein disguised as dessert a bunch of awesome things for you to put in your 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instagram which echo likes to call the gram and on facebook dave is at david r burke and i am at jocko willink and thanks once again to general bruce clark and colonel david hackworth for your service to america and for continuing to take care of the troops through the lessons you passed on and thanks to the military personnel out there right now holding the line thank you for doing what you do every day to keep us safe and to the police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and emt’s dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service and all the other first responders thank you for holding the line here at home and to everyone else out there remember these lessons from general clark remember that the ceiling you can’t break through remember that there’s a pretty good chance that you built it you made the wrong decisions wasted opportunities deterioration of attitude lowering standards poor ethics poor associations procrastination and bad habits the list goes on and on and on and the list is on you the list is on me we control so much of our fate we control so much of our destiny and maybe it’s those little fractions of things that we don’t truly control maybe that’s what causes us to just give up on the rest but i’m telling you don’t do that don’t give up on it own it own it all and break through that ceiling and become what you want to become and become who you are supposed to become and you do that by going out there every day and getting after it so until next time this is dave and jocko out