Jocko Podcast - 267: Are You Competing In The Right Things? MCDP 1-4. Pt. 4

Episode Date: February 3, 2021

0:00:00 - Opening0:09:49 - MCDP 1-4. Competing.1:46:59 - Final thoughts1:52:31 - How to stay on THE PATH2:05:16 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 267 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. And also joining us once again, becoming a regular, perhaps? I don't know. It certainly seems that way, at least when we're dealing with the Marine Corps. Dave Burke, good evening, Dave. Good evening.

All right, so we are three chapters down of Marine Corps doctrinal publication, one attack for called competing. We're going to knock out the last two today. I feel like we can do it. I feel like we can push through these last two because there's some examples that I'm going to skip over. Last time I started this off talking about how a tactical battle that can cause strategic defeat isn't a tactical battle at all.

It's actually a strategic battle. You got a big smile on your face when I said that last time, Dave. And then I actually heard you talking about it to a client. So that was cool. So we're soaking up knowledge here. And here's something else to think about. So we're competing all the time, right? That's sort of this theme.

Or as Echo would say, that's sort of the theme. Here's the question. Are we competing in the right things? And this is where strategic thinking comes in again. How much time and effort am I putting into a competition that doesn't matter? We have to think strategically. How often are we competing? And the sole reason that we are competing is because of our ego.

How often is that happening? It's insanity, actually. And it happens all the time. New car. Got to get the new car. Got to get the new car. Got to get the Rolex watch. Look, I got nothing against Rolex watches.

Whatever. I kind of do have a fondness for Timex watches, perhaps. But there's people. that they want, they're competing. They're looking at my watch as if I'm a lower human being. Legitimately, I'm a lower human being because their car is nicer than mine, because their watch is nicer than mine. Because they have a title at their business, right?

And so now I got to compete with them. Maybe I can try to get that title. Maybe I can try and get a better watch. Maybe I can try and use the plan that I came up with instead of a plan that you came up with. It seems so obvious that that's not, None of those things are good moves to get caught in the ecosystem competition. Because if we take one step outside of that ecosystem, one step outside of that ecosystem, and no one cares.

There's no one that cares about whatever that thing that seems like you need to win. You need to pour your effort into to win. And you take one step outside of that ecosystem and it's meaningless. I can't tell the difference between a Rolex watch and the Chinese made whatever, what is that called? A knockoff. A knockoff. I can't tell the difference. It doesn't matter to me.

Some people would freak out about that. We all like to win. I get it. I get it. Our egos love to win. Our egos love to win at everything, at anything. Our egos are addicted to winning. And just think about this.

Addicted to winning. There's a lot of people that kind of, they think, yeah. Hell yeah. Oh, yeah, I'm addicted to winning. It sounds cool. It actually sounds cool. Because I want to be a winner, right?

Obviously, I'm a winner. Because if I'm not a winner, what am I? You're a loser. I'm a loser. And I don't want to be a loser. I want to be a winner. Well, let me ask you this. What are you winning?

What are you winning? And how does that victory? that you just achieved, does it move you towards your long-term strategic goal? Does it? I was talking about this on EF online today. I was talking about ruthlessly destroying my youngest daughter in Monopoly. To where she doesn't want to play anymore, right? Tactical victory.

I like to win. I mean, we're talking about, I think she was probably nine or ten at the time a couple years ago. Annihilated her, had the entire, had every property, hotels on everything, put her into debt. Parked place.

Now, she didn't want to me. Now, she doesn't want to play Monopoly with me anymore. She's not going to play the game with me anymore. So that's, how does that, was that a strategic, good move for me? No. Because it could be, it's a great way to teach people.

It's a great way to teach your kids about investing and real estate and mortgages and loans from the banks and interest. You can do all kinds of cool stuff with monopoly. I took all that threw it out the window. Took it all and just threw it out the window. Why? Because I was going to just win. Now, was there some strategy behind it?

A little bit. Don't mess with that. Yep, no. But what, but what, but really? Did that victory help me? The answer is no. No. I would have been better off to had a good time,

had her win. It would have been, it would have been a better strategic move to play a good game, let her get some moves, look, win or lose, it doesn't even really matter, but to have a good game,

a more balanced game would have been a better strategic move. Now we have something fun to do, right? And again, there's all these teaching points that you can educate. You can negotiate. You can do negotiation training during monopolies. There's all kinds of things that I threw away. So that's bad.

And when we look at, look, we all want to say, oh, I'm super competitive. I'm hyper competitive. I'm going to tell you, I know I am, and I know a lot of people are. We're competing all the time, but don't waste your time competing in short-term contest. that don't lead you towards your strategic goal. Remember that competing in the wrong arenas is bad. Competing in the wrong arenas is bad. Pay attention to the arena that you're competing is.

It can be bad for you. It can be bad for your family. It can be bad for your business. It can be bad for your life and it can be bad for the world. Because you're focused on things that do not matter at a strategic level. That's what you're competing at. And by the way, we can all name people. That win and compete and win and compete and they compete and they win every single day.

Every single day they win. And when you assess at the end of the day where they end up, they end up losers. Despite all those wins, they end up losing because they're winning and they're competing in the wrong things. So as much as, as much as, you know, we've been sitting here this whole time talking about, you're always competing and being, being all fired up for that. Here's the caution. Pay attention. Pay attention to what you're competing in. Make sure it's heading you in the right direction.

You got anything on that, Dave? I saw you scratch some down. Yeah, I scratched some down. So when you were talking about addicted to winning, I wrote down at all costs. I'm going to win at all costs. And then as I'm listening to your talk, I wrote down, even, if the cost is you. The cost is to yourself.

And you concluded with what do you end up being, you end up being a loser. When you do that, you win all the time. And it's the willingness to compete to win at all costs. And your ego is strong enough to let you compete at all costs, even if the cost is to your own success in the long run. Yeah. Yeah.

I think we talked about on this or on the underground podcast, but the winning at all costs muster thing that I did. I should record. I should capture that and release it. the winning at all costs set up to make everyone think, yeah, win it all costs, and then realize, oh, he's talking about something totally different.

Winning at all costs means subordinating your ego, means thinking strategically, it means taking losses when it makes sense, all things to think about, all things to think about. And with that, let's jump into, back into the final day. I'm going to go ahead and predict this is the final day, of Marine Corps Doctrional Publication of One TAC for competing.

And this first chapter is how rivals approach competition. It starts off. A friend of mine says that to try to describe what life is like in Russia to someone who has never been there is like trying to describe

the mysteries of love to a person who has never experienced it. That's from George Kennan. And then there's another quote here competing effectively requires knowing your competition intimately. How many hundreds of times have we heard that one? Only by understanding a competitor's worldview,

decision making, and behavioral proclivities can one out maneuvered that competitor. Only by grasping a rival's weaknesses and fears can one exploit them. Such understanding, in turn, requires sustained intellectual and economic investment. That's from Hal Brands. He's a historian. Son of H.W. Brands.

Famous historian. I guess they're both famous. That's a really long sentence. Perhaps we could have just quoted Sun Su in that one, but it's good to show some different angles. Why are they doing that? Well, because it's worldview. It's decision-making.

It's understanding, trying to show some things that you need to understand. Because Sun-su would just say, no, your enemy. Boom, done. We're done. Here's some details. First section is called The Test. This chapter explores how political actors who view themselves as rivals to the United States

and its allies approach competition. Usually this means states with authoritarian governments or non-state actors who ascribe to an extremist ideology. In leadership strategy and tactics, there's one section where it's on page 157 and 158 where I talk about what a good leader in a new leader stepping into a leadership role. And it actually ends up just applying to all leaders.

But one of the things I say in there is, be balanced extreme opinions and ask. actions are usually bad. And what's interesting about this, America, the way America is supposed to be is balanced. That's the way it's supposed to be. And you'll notice that when they're talking about who the rivals of America are, it's talking about authoritarian governments, that's an extreme, or non-state actors that are ascribed to an extreme ideology.

So just a clue When we're thinking about our country, about America We are trying to have balance We're trying to not be extreme That's not a good thing We're trying to our rivals are extreme Continuing, we label these actors rivals Because they either use competitive methods

That run counter to accepted international norms Or they pursue inrests that clash With those of the United States and its allies Frequently they do both truly understanding how our potential rivals approach competition requires serious reflection and critical thinking. Once again, Marine Corps telling us to be reflective and telling us to apply critical thinking. We didn't hear any talk of serious reflection and critical thinking from Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in the first 45 minutes of full metal jacket.

continuing on. With such intellectual discipline, it will be nearly impossible for Marines to see beyond their own patterns of thought, the patterns they develop from living in an American society and serving in an organization like the Marine Corps. So you have to break out of that box that you're in. However, those who do this kind of intellectual work, which is a strong word, work,

give themselves the opportunity as discussed in Chapter 2 to create a model representing rival approaches to competition. Okay, for people like Marines who carry 100-pound rucksacks up and down a hill, who hump machine guns, who come over the beach, who dig in to foxholes, to use the word work to describe how we're going to think about things. That's an important thing to note. This is not easy. It's not easy. And I'm going to give everyone a little hint here, myself included. You know how you know you know how you can do intellectual work?

Echo you got any guesses how do you do intellectual work? How do you think about something? What does that look like? Me? Yeah, echo Charles. How do I do intellectual work? So if you read about something or listen. Okay, okay.

Somebody, people talk or whatever and then try to think of other examples outside of their specific context. Okay, excellent. I like this answer. That's the first one that came to mind. I do that all the time. Obviously, you sit here and do that with me all the time because we're sitting here reading books and talking about the context of that book and then what it looks like from different angles. We study the same material from war over and over again and should look at it from a different angle. So the whole idea of trying to, and again, we talked about this before, but yes, one of my biggest take, No, straight up, my biggest takeaway from this whole thing, campaign, whatever, is recognizing that there's a short game and play and long game at play.

So to be able to see the long game in every little move you do, that takes work. That's a good exercise, we'll say, for the work. Okay. I like where you're at. You brought us closer to my answer. Dave Burke. Any additional information?

Yeah, I mean, the thing I would add is, When I listen to other people talk or read or hear or whatever that is, and it's certainly a habit that I've picked up, haven't always had this habit, certainly not the beginning of my reading life, is just trying to figure out why people think what they think. Like, why do they see it that way? And not for the sake of finding out what's wrong with them,

but by actually wondering if they're seeing something and I'm not seeing. Like, why does this guy see the same problem, the same problem that I think I'm looking at and see it so differently? And what does he see that I don't see? And a lot of where that thought came in is my time in the military is when I started flying up a top gun, was the first time we really got invested in our adversary capability. So we always knew what our threats could do, but it's kind of pretty binary, pretty linear. They can do this, they can do that, we can do this, we can do this, maybe that this problem, you know,

get solved by when you shoot a missile or where you maneuver, things like that. When I went up to top gun, I became the adversary officer, which means my job for about a year was to pretend to be a Russian pilot, Basically, build plans, build tactics, do things. And what I was supposed to do was see the world through their eyes. And that actually helped me learn that when I see what they're doing or what other people are thinking or saying is, why are they seeing the same thing differently? And that, to me, leads to what are they trying to accomplish?

One more example, which I think is important, though, that's the only reason I bring it up, is the ability to separate your feelings from your behavior. because usually like if you're just not doing any mental work or whatever, whatever you feel, your behavior is going to reflect that is typically, we'll say. That doesn't take much work. But if you're, and the more intense, the feeling, the harder work, it's going to be to change your behavior so it's not based on those emotions, feelings, whatever.

So when you can separate those two, that's work. Wait, what are we separating? How you feel and how you behave. Okay, got it. So, you know, when you get angry, you don't have to act angry. Like, that's hard. That's work right there for mental work. Yep, yep.

So there's one more thing that I would add to these ideas. So we have read, which I definitely like. Then we're going to read, we're going to question. Both you kind of said the same thing. Like, hey, we're going to question why is that like that? Maybe it's a little overlay of my thoughts or feelings about that or my experiences around that. And then what I would say intellectual work kind of requires is to run.

is to write, is to actually write down what you're, what you're, what you're, what you're, where you're going. And one of the most powerful things about writing things down, and this is another thing I said on EF online today, writing things down is de facto detaching from it. So if I, if Dave's having a hard time making a decision and I could tell him, hey, you need to detach or I can say, hey, make a pros and cons list. He makes a pros and cons. Now he's literally comes out of his head.

head onto a piece of paper and he's looking at it. It's actual detachment. The only way I can write a cons list of my own plan is to be detached from that plan. The only way I can come up with what's wrong with it is to detach from it. Yeah. Totally. So if you're out there and you're thinking, okay, I want to do some intellectual work. Well, what you should do is read.

You should question and you should write down what you think. Because when you're trying to write down what you think, it detaches you from the problem. Even if you're trying to write down, even if Dave, hands me, you know, 20 pages of his concept about how Russians fly. What I should do is go, hey, thanks, Dave. I should read it. And I should actually write down, hey, I think these were the major points that you hit. And now I'm, now I'm seeing what I'm understanding and I'm looking at it. And I go, oh, wait, he also said this. Oh, wait, there's a hole over here. Dave didn't see this really super obvious thing that any idiot would have seen. I'm just kidding. But it, but it allows me to look at it

from a detached perspective. So even if you read something, even if somebody explains something to you, to capture those things, you know even when you take notes, taking notes is part of it. Taking notes is part of it. Taking notes is part of learning in way the warrior kid.

You can't just buy flashcards with math problems, with the times table. You can't just buy flashcards. You need to make them. You need to write them yourself. That's part of it. That's part of the learning process. Continues on here.

We return to the Uda loop to develop our understanding of why others approach competition differently and what the implications might be. We accept that Uda is more than a linear process. A person's orientation interacts dynamically with the other three elements of the Uda loop. Below we examine how a rival's orientation may be different from ours and then look at how to use this knowledge to build our understanding of rival approaches to competition. So we're just going deep into Dave Burke world. How much did you guys focus on the Oudalup at TopCon?

We talked about it. It's embedded in there. It's funny because I talk, I teach, I guess you could say it, I teach a version of the Oudal Loop now, especially at the muster. My connection to the Oudaloup is much more aligned with the principles of extreme ownership. We talk about prioritizing XQ, observe,

orienteside, is relax, look around and make a call. So I make kind of a narrow connection. And the way I teach it is, is narrow by design. It's a 25-minute class. I'm not going to spend hours on this thing. And one of the things that I focus on is the action, the A part of the loop.

But when this, you know, the inception of this thing, when Boyd talked about it, and if you read Boyd's description of the loop, he talks about orientation and basically says that's the most important part. That's the most critical step.

And underneath that was his recognition of how hard it is to do what you just described, Jocco, how hard it is for me to go, all right, let me get out of my own head, my own eyes, this and see it from another person's perspective. How hard it is to detach.

And so as we're talking Uda in the orientation piece, he emphasized that so much because I think he understood it's so difficult to detach and go, what are you seeing? How are you seeing this differently? Certainly, you know, great power competition. You could go down to an airplane. But that orientation process is really difficult to do. And that was one of the things we talked about all the time is we would teach from one perspective and fly from another. So if as a Topkin instructor, I would go teach you

offensive BFM and I would fly defensive. Sorry, sorry, that's dog fighting, one against one, basic fighter maneuvers. So the whole class I would give before you and I go fly, I'm teaching you how to be behind me, offensive. And then I would fly the flight as the instructor the opposite side. You're trying to be behind me. No, no, no. I am, you're behind me. It's designed to be that. It's you to get that picture, but the instructor has to be able to have the vision looking over, looking behind me, but seeing it as if I'm behind you, the ability to have your orientation.

So if I'm going to be a good, if I'm going to be a qualified top gun instructor, I have to teach you how to fly offensive, meaning you're behind me. I have to fly that whole flight defensive, but be able to explain what happened from your perspective, from your point of view. That's what makes it so hard.

That's the orientation. Because in that fight, the way it is, is you're behind me and I'm defensive. But what I'm actually teaching is, I'm behind you and offensive and is really hard to do that. So this idea here is important because now we're not just talking about orient myself.

It's what's your orientation? What's my rivals orientation? And that's a radically different ballgame. And it's funny because I always use the term perspective, right? Totally. I don't know what my enemy's perspective or what my, you know, what my coworker's perspective is. How are they oriented towards this problem?

What's their perspective on this? So this is something that I talk about all time, but I haven't connected that. What we're really doing is we're seeing their utaloupe. What does it look like for them? Orientation's effects on the utaloupe. Orientation influences all other elements of the utaloupe.

Because it controls how people make sense of what they observe and because it shapes their decisions and actions. Orientation consists of all things that affect how a person understands the world such as language, culture, genetics, education, previous experience. etc. Humans often use mental shortcuts called heuristics, which we talked about on the cognitive bias program on the underground. They developed for orientation.

Now, this is another crazy web of connection. And I've been going off on this. When Darrell Cooper and I did one of the unraveling podcasts, and we talked about what is your story. And this whole thing, and you take that what is your story, and then you apply it to leadership and you apply it to life. That's exactly what this is.

Understanding the person's story, understanding the rival story, understanding the enemy story, understanding your competitor's story, and also understanding your co-workers story, understanding your subordinate story, understanding your superior story, understanding your peer story.

All those things are playing into how they are oriented in this situation. So I'm going to fill this out there just a little something. For you. If I'm having trouble with Dave, if I'm having trouble with Dave as he's my subordinate or he's my peer, you know what's a good little drill is to sit down and write out what is Dave's perspective? Because now I'm going to detach. Now I'm going to take a step back.

Now I'm going to have to actually do the intellectual work. Because I can say the old Dave's problem is. That's cool. But that's not intellectual. work that's intellectual doodling and I'm pointing at echo Charles when I say that because echo Charles has a tendency to doodle sometimes during this podcast intellectual doodling is oh what Dave's problem is intellectual work is you know what I need to sit down and write down what is Dave's perspective why does he care about this project why is he so concerned about

the timeline why is he need say he needs more people when he's never asked for those are really good questions if I answer those questions and do the intellectual work, I will actually make progress and do a better job of understanding what his perspective is and how he's oriented in this situation. For example, back to the book, when people learn to drive a car, they gain experience in making a right turn. At first, they consciously look through, think through each step, such as engaging the turn signal, looking in their mirrors for other traffic, tapping the brake pedal, turning the wheel. In a relatively short time, this experience becomes a mental shortcut so that when a driver recognizes a pattern their brain

knows as right turn, they automatically go through the steps and making the right turn. little no need for conscious thought about it. Apply that mental. A similar type of mental shortcut also happens with great frequency, often in more complex or dangerous situations. So we're not thinking, or we're taking shortcuts, mental shortcuts. What do you got, Dave?

I got to be careful, man. We might not get through this one. Yeah, I'm starting to freak out. God, but this is, there's so much in here. You said this, I think on the last podcast was this, I know this publication is about competing with our global rival here, but this doesn't have to be about a competitor all the time. A competitor all the time.

It can be the people on your team. 100%. The people that you're trying to help. And I think the way you're describing it is, I mean, that's leadership at its core. And I was just thinking of what an advantage that you have. If you can understand from their perspective why they're doing what they're doing, and of course it helps with your competition. If you know why that chess player is moving the pieces the way it is, that's a huge

advantage. But think about how you can help your people. and this is just the idea that this understanding of their perspective, the leadership power that you have to understand that, and the impact you can have to help them make good decisions or help them get to what they want to get or accomplish what they want to accomplish by understanding their perspective.

And you use an example all the time. We talk about kids and that's actually one thing we can do is I remember what it's like to be my 12-year-old daughter and it's easy to dismiss it and be like, get annoyed with them for behaving or acting or reacting to a situation a certain way, unless you go, oh, you know what? I actually remember what that feels like to be in her situation.

I know where she's coming from. I know why she sees this thing as such a huge deal. And if I take that perspective, that orientation, it's so much easier for me to guide her to where I want her to be, to help her, not as a competitor, but someone I actually want to help. So just the connection between the orientation, the competition and the next piece is actually to lead them.

that's saying, hey, don't forget, don't forget where you came from. Like when I became an officer in the SEAL teams, you know, don't forget where you came from, man. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. And you don't want to forget where you came from. What is the thing that you don't want to forget? You don't want to forget that perspective. I wrote about leadership strategy and tactics.

I remembered being the last guy on a patrol. No idea where we're going. No idea how much further we have to go until we get there. No idea when we're going to get a break. No idea if there's any streams up ahead where we can get water. I don't know anything and I hated it and when I was in charge I remembered I didn't forget where I came from I didn't forget what it was the I didn't forget the perspective of being an AW in the back of the train So it's like the opposite of the curse of knowledge remember that Cognitive bias the curse of knowledge when you kind of forget that you know everything and everyone else doesn't

Right it's the opposite of that I wouldn't I know it's the opposite of that But it's a similar thing where I think everybody knows what I know and in this case Don't forget. Yeah, I guess it is. I guess it is you could utilize that cognitive bias as a warning Hey, make sure that everybody not everybody knows what you know. Yeah Continue on it is essential for Marines to understand the role a person's orientation plays in the choices they make and how this relates to the actions they take in the world This also applies to groups of people where a kind of collective orientation can work in a similar way. Oh wow If everyone on the team sees something the same way it's going to be a better

It's going to be an easier team to lead and they're going to get more stuff done and they're going to get it done quicker. Yeah. Now that when you said, oh, the earlier podcast, the whole reason that I was so fired up for this podcast is because it's not just about competing. It's equally about leadership. Yeah. My note on the cover of this says competing and then or influencing, which is leadership. This also applies to groups of people where a kind of collective orientation can work in a similar way. We must constantly study the components of a rival's orientation if our understanding of their approach to competition is to be useful in crafting our own campaign.

Keep in mind that two people can look at a set of facts and come to very different conclusions about what these facts mean. This applies to groups of people as well. As we learned in chapter two, narratives, narratives stories. Narratives are what people use to give meaning to facts. Isn't that an interesting way of saying it? A narrative in this sense is a story that explains how the world works. This narrative or story is constructed from the components, language, culture, experience, found in orientation. Thus, people make sense of the world based on their orientation.

And again, the podcast that Daryl and I did on this called What Is Your Story on the Unraveling Podcast, the way that the mind works to formulate stories so that you can survive and make sense of the world, there's all these, we cover them on the podcast, but these psychological experiments that psychologists have done that show clearly that we will connect the dots in our own head and just believe that to be the truth. We will make up a story. It's the extreme of, you know, in leadership strategy and tactics of,

hey, if you don't tell the team what's going on, they're going to make up a story. It's not going to be a good one, by the way. That's what we do. So we do it in groups? We'll fill in the blanks all day long. If you're in a seal platoon and you don't know where you're going,

believe me, guess where you're going. You're going to Siberia for a six-month deployment. That's what's happening. And then you know I got fired up with the title of this next section. Language shapes behavior. Isn't that interesting there, 1984, George Gerwell, which some people have commented at Echo Charles. That you didn't read that book in high school.

No. Scary. We think it's scary. I don't even know if it was because they didn't assign it or because I refused to read it after it was assigned. refused or or failed to okay just wanted to make sure I've never I don't think that we were using flesh gonna shape our behavior in a correct manner did you unread it yeah we didn't have that but I don't think we had that book

check it's a hard book to get I mean it's no I'm just kidding people use words to describe things around the world around them and to describe what is happening in the world these words influence their actions language affects groups of people in similar way as the words they choose provide the meaning they want to communicate to each other. The words they choose provide the meaning they want to communicate to each other. The meaning that is understood then causes the group to act in one way or another. Note that this applies to the word competition. In the Western world, the word has various meanings that bring to mind sporting events or perhaps two businesses trying to win market share. When we add descriptors to the word like great power

competition or nation state competition the context the descriptors provide adjust our understanding of the competition we face have you ever heard that the Eskimos have a hundred different words for snow fact or fiction where you at I don't know oh the fact that they have a hundred different words 100 100 I don't think that that's true Dave factor fiction I'm going to say it's not True. It's probably just a saying. Okay, but it probably is rooted in something. Yeah, maybe there's a lot more than just one word. Yeah, like 14 words or something like this. I don't know how many words. It's probably a lot. I'm this is really dumb of me to do this. I like did research and didn't write it down. I think the number is around 50. There's around 50 words and but but it's words for like frost versus snow on the ground versus snow in the air versus hard pack snow versus soft powdery snow. They they do have different words. Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I remember I was telling you in in Hawaiian there's different words for water for that exact same reason there's ocean water there's river water there's a rain that you know it's different words yeah and those are really actually very different things I mean let's face it those are

really different things why don't we have what I guess we have the descriptor ocean water river water lake water yeah but why some things need the descriptor and one thing's kind of need a whole different word you know what's the differentiator really I don't know it's a mystery Hey, look, if you're going to be like, if you're going to be like, hey, rainwater, river water, lake water, waterfall, ocean water, wave, these are all things that have water. Why not just go deeper, go oxygen. There's oxygen and all these other things. I was trying to think of an example of like, well, what words actually are like that? Here's one.

Road. We have a road. Totally. We have a highway. We have an exit. It makes it, yeah. We have what? Okay, there's three words.

Well, then there's street. Street. Okay, good, yes, thank you. There's a bunch more. And the connection to it is like your ass is like it's about, I think it's about perspective and the orientation of it. Oh, by the way, like I was thinking of when you said snow was like, well, if it's, is it, I don't know, is it a dusting or is it like a dumping? Like the perspective of that actually really matters.

Like what would you go do and what road? I don't know. Is it a like unpaved single lane, you know, dirt hardball? Yeah, yeah, that's right. And if you're going to go on one of those crazy hikes, is it like, what kind of road is it? And that's the word he's described is going to matter a lot based on your perspective on that. Yeah. We're never going to get through this. Stop talking. I'm saying, where's the line? You know, where do you draw the line? But yeah, you're right.

use to label the same relationship. The contrast helps us see how language might shape behavior. For example, some rivals use struggle or embracing while fighting, which is a pretty cool thing. We call that jujitsu, by the way. Embracing while fighting to name what we know as competition. To most Marines, hearing something described as struggle or fighting would shape an initial reaction quite a bit different than if we had heard described as competition.

Because of the mental shortcuts built into how we learn to use the words and what our experience tells us those words typically mean. This should alert us that we need to employ critical thinking when considering the language our competitors use. It can and does cause them to approach the situation from a different perspective, which leads them to consider using different tools than we might choose. That's just... If you don't think through that right there, you're just going to fall short.

If you don't think about how your competitor, or wait, more important, what is your, what is your subordinate? How, what words are they choosing? Wait, I'm getting, oh, I'm in charge of this. Oh, I'm in charge. Hey, I want you to take charge of this. And then I hear echo in the locker room going, yeah, Jocco tasked me with. Oh, you see what? As opposed to like, yeah, I'm going to be running this now.

Oh. Yeah, yeah. We're saying the exact same thing. Totally different meaning. Yeah. One echo is happy about, hey, I'm going to run. I'm going to run this now. And one is, hey, jocco tasked me with doing this.

Of course, I'm throwing some tone on there, I guess. Yeah. But that's true, though. Like, you know, if you tell me, hey, you're in charge of mowing the lawn. I'm like, okay, you know, I take some response. You know, that's the feeling, you know. But if you'd be like, hey, you got to go do some chores. And one of them is.

Going that that's your problem how about that moan the that's your problem now kind of like I don't want to do it You you're gonna do it both the situations I got to do it same deal man Different attitude though different approaches if I understand the approach if I understand that the words that I use or when I ask you about it And I understand that those words reveal the situation clear for me as a leader to make decisions that's a powerful thing And of course it applies to our competition as well The words people pick to describe things can also reveal biases or tendencies, which is what I just said. And these things can be exploited. Our competitors across the globe recognize Western society's tendency to think of themselves as either in a condition of at peace or at war.

This is a significant contrast from Maltze Dung's politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. Mao chose the word war. He chose the word war to describe the enduring relationship between political actors and in essence said that while the relationship is violent some of the time, it's always at a state of war. Marines must consider how using words like these differs from how the United States describes it and the corresponding impact these differences might have on the ways and means a rival might use in competition. Man, you're thinking we're in competition. They're thinking we're at war. The culture of a group can be defined as the group's accumulated shared learning of how to solve internal and external problems. The group, this is culture, by the way, I missed that.

The title of this is culture. The culture of a group can be defined as the group's accumulated shared learning of how to solve internal and external problems. The group then determines that this shared learning is valid so the new members learn it as the correct way to perceive it, to perceive, think, feel, and behave. That's what culture is. New members come on and that culture is going to tell them how to perceive things, how to think, how to feel, and how to behave. The group then starts to take this accumulated learning for granted as a system of beliefs, values, and behavioral norms. This is culture. This is what you're trying to build inside your company.

This is what you're trying to build inside your team. This is what you're trying to build inside your platoon. When this happens, the system turns into basic assumptions and eventually drops out of conscious awareness. You want that culture so ingrained that people aren't even thinking about it. What's the deal, Dave? What's the deal with Marines wearing flip-flops on base? Is that legal or illegal? Illegal.

So being that, when I was, you know, when I was in the d'Rves, and I would go to MCRD, right? And I would, you know, I would have like a short hair. and I would be dressed you know just whatever and I you know surf shorts t-shirt flip-flops and sometimes occasionally I would get a look a second look oh yeah like whoa you know you could see and you and I never actually had anybody say anything to me I never had somebody cross over and say hey Marine and maybe it's because by this point I never really went to MCRD a lot until I was a little

older you know if I would have been younger I probably had gotten called out. Definitely. Okay, that's good to know. So that's culture, right? Yeah. I mean, so that's the culture in the Marine Corps. You don't wear flip-flops with the civilian clothes.

Certainly not on base. I mean, I remember one of my first overseas deployments where my wife actually came and spent a little time with me, which is kind of uncommon. It was a Japan deployment, so, you know, not obviously a common deployment, but she came out and spent a little time, and just up the road was the seven-day store,

which is, like, on every Marine base, you can get, like, you know, sodas or whatever. And you can rent very, videos or do and there she was in there getting something and and two young Marines walked in and there was like a Marine gunnery sergeant just standing there on a Saturday afternoon not doing anything but at the front door and every Marine that showed up with flip flops he made him turn made him leave and it was like a three quarter mile walk getting up there was a total bummer you know it was like I don't have vehicles or young kids are 18 years old and just the looks on those young

Marines face is just the dejected look and she came back and she's like what is the deal I'm like Marines don't wear flip-flops on this. That's the deal. But that's the, you know, that's the culture. That's the culture. And, you know, you can argue all day long about, hey, you know, is this a big deal or is not a big deal? There's an argument that says, like, dude, is it a big deal? You can make that argument.

And then the other argument is, what is more important than the culture in the Marine Corps? So I, of course, was like, the Marines don't wear flip-flops on base. Like that's, I don't know. What else is there for me to say? Yeah, exactly. Marines don't wear flip-lops. Thank you. Period.

Next question. Beer now. Yeah. But yeah, that's a thing. That's absolutely a thing. Yeah. So that's like the perfect culture, right? That's the perfect, exactly why I asked you that question.

Because what is more important than the culture of the Marine Corps? Marines don't wear flip-flops, period, end of story. There's a level of professionalism that is we don't go below. That's right. And I just use the word we to describe the Marine Corps. Culture is similar to a computer's operating system. It is the basic rule set about how the computer works, but it operates in the background. We have to purposefully examine the operating system if we want to learn how it affects the computer's operations.

Culture is like this rule set operating in the background while influencing a group's thoughts and actions. Culture like an operating system receives updates and adjustments over time as more is learned and as it adjusts to new threats and opportunities. Culture however changes organically while an operating system. relies on human intervention. Now, what's interesting about that is you have to check your culture sometimes. How do you check your culture? I'll give you one guess. What you do is you take a step back and you write down what the culture is.

Now, here's where you might be let astray. I might think, oh, I want to know about the culture in my platoon. So I write down, my platoon gets to work first. My platoon puts the job first. My platoon, we take care of each other. my platoon, we look sharp all the time, whatever, whatever these things are. That's the culture in your platoon. I can't just say, I can't just interject a new culture line into that and have it just be,

well, that's the new, that's now the culture. You can't do that. Cultures, how are they describing it? Culture's organic. Now, listen, over time, you can make it. You know, hardcore recondos. Hardcore recondos, right? The 439th with Hackworth.

He interjected, hey, from now on, the salutation is hardcore recondos, no fucking slack. And he says, at first, what did they do? They laughed. Go go, go, lifer. Who's this freaking lifer, right? And then it started to creep in. Start to creep into the consciousness. So you can't interject something to just expect.

it to be accepted. And but as you interject something, and if you are a good leader and you set a good example and you start keeping your troops alive, which Hackworth did, and you start going on offense and you start winning

and people start to embrace these things that you brought on board. You can make that culture have a shift. So what you have to be careful of, though, what you have to be careful of and why it's good to step back and do an assessment and write down what you think your culture is,

so you can make sure there's nothing in there that says, platoon comes first, screw everyone else. We don't want that culture. Now we need to start thinking, okay, I know I can't just line out, screw everyone else, and now we're good. I have to say, how am I going to slowly,

organically change this culture into what it should be? Dude, that's not easy, man. I mean, like you're describing that, I mean, God, I'm almost embarrassed to give my version of that or my example of that as a commander because compared to Hackworth, it's just so ridiculous. But when I took command, my first operational command as an F-35 squadron commander was the very first F-35 squadron the Marine Corps ever.

And what I was given in that squadron. Were Hornet guys and Harrier guys. And there were West Coast Hornet guys and East Coast Hornet guys. And you know this probably similar in the teams, East Coast and West Coast, they're actually, in a lot of it's very different. So if you flew Hornets on the West Coast, you got a lot of cultural norms that are different than Hornets on the East Coast. And then I got a whole different. So I had four different cultures, really, Hornets, Harriers, East Coast, West Coast.

And the first thing, one of the first things I instituted when I got there as the commander. So it was like, we are a 35 guys. There's no more Hornet guy. There's no, and I don't care if your background, if you flew Harriers in Cherry Point or Hornets in Japan. It doesn't matter. Because there's some connotation like, oh, the Hornet guys were better air to air. The Harrier guys are better to air to ground because that's where they came from. Well, this new airplane, we need to do it all.

So it was, there was some resistance of that's where I came from. That's my identity and that's what we are. And it took some time to resist against, to push against that. But what I wanted the rest of the world to know about us was this is what we do. Not this is where we used to do. This is where it came from. And so even some simple resistance of that where I thought, everyone was going to be on board at that.

It took some time for guys to release that former identity of what we were. And I think in some ways it's good because it speaks to how strong the culture is. But the bigger issue was how hard it is to change the culture. And if they don't buy into it, it's not, it's never going to happen. If they don't buy into that change, that change will not happen. It has to be organic. It has to take, it's going to take time. You have to plant the seeds.

You have to let, you have to let it grow inside their own minds, right? You can do your best to plant seeds, but it's going to have to come from inside. You can't really impose. It's very difficult. Can't see you can't. It's difficult to impose culture. Yeah. Although culture has a wide variety of attributes, we will highlight time risk and mindset as we consider how culture might affect the way our rivals approach competition.

Collectivists or group-focused cultures emphasize the importance of the group over the individual and often feel compelled to reach decisions by gaining consensus, which frequently takes time to develop. From an American orientation, this may appear to take too long from a collective culture orientation. achieving consensus might be considered so important that taking months or even years to reach a decision is given higher priority. Neither perspective is objectively right or wrong, but each is logically consistent when viewed from its respective cultural orientation. I have a note here. My note says both these are wrong from a leadership perspective. Let them come up with the plan, let them come up the idea and provide support to it. That's a lot faster.

It's a lot faster for me to say, hey, Dave, you know, hey, what does your team want to do here? I'll tell you what, come up with the plan and brief me on the plan. I'm not arguing. I'm not looking for consensus. I'm just looking for a good idea that's pretty close and we're going to run with it. Just how much easier does it get consensus when you're not trying to create the consensus? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, wait, I agree.

Okay, we're done trying, we're done trying to get consensus. I love your idea. Oh, yeah. Your idea is awesome. Totally. What about when there's nine people? Cool. Help guide those nine people to give consensus to each other.

Consensus is, consensus becomes a battle when you inject ego into it. Yes. Otherwise, we just ask some questions and we figure out what the best solution is and we move forward. I had a question the other day, two days ago. What do you do when you keep, when you check your ego, but you still want to, to do your plan. So someone talking about two people on their team, they both had different plans, same outcome, but different ways to do it.

What happens when you check your ego and still want to do your plan? Like, well, actually, if you check your ego and you see that their plan is going to get to the same outcome, you'll do their plan. And it was kind of like, how often would you do that? My answer was 100% of the time. Or at a minute, like, as often as humanly possible. and just the only how many that the only barrier to the things you're trying to accomplish the barrier to the consensus is you it's if as long as you're aligned as long as you're going to

the same place the only reason why you won't do it their way is your ego and the minute you agree to do it their way you have alignment and consensus and you're moving and it's your life gets so much better yeah because when I want to do it my way and Dave wants to do it Dave's way and I spend nine hours trying to present my case and he's arguing against me and he's actually going to do some research and bringing back some facts and figures we already executed the plan and I said hey Dave that looks pretty good go with it and by the way also now when I say hey Dave dude your plan looks awesome let's roll with it how can I support and then two hours later go hey Dave there's this thing over here do you think I could adjust this what's your attitude your attitude's up oh yeah absolutely make my plan even better right that's what we're doing And you mentioned it. The only time that we're, the only time I can't come to consensus with you, if like I'm not getting there,

if we can't figure out like my plan or your plan, I need to say, okay, wait, wait, wait a second. Where do you actually want to go? Well, you know, are we aligned? Because if we're not actually going to the wrong, to the same place, if we're going to the same place, subordinate your ego and let's go.

I'm good. Totally. This sounds like a great plan, Dave. It's going to take an extra two hours. Cool. I'm net five hours. hours gained because I didn't spend seven hours arguing different orientations also result in different attitudes towards identifying and weighing risk this may lead

to behavior that is surprising to us for example Chinese and Russian ships and aircraft have maneuvered in close proximity to US forces which appears to us as unnecessary unnecessary dangerous and operating against agreed international protocols we may especially view such behavior as strange when we think of ourselves as at peace with them Taking these risks might look quite different from another viewpoint. Operating this way may seem justified to those who see themselves in a condition of war without bloodshed or embracing without fighting. Finally, different cultures produce different mindsets.

As mentioned above, culture is a system of beliefs, values, and behavioral norms that operate in the background below the level of conscious awareness. This produces a frame of mind that seeks to make the right choice in a given situation with right being defined by these background factors. They have both those rights in quotes. This produces a frame of mind that seeks to make the quote right this choice in a given situation with quote right being defined by those background factors. This is also often labeled intuition. When somebody makes an intuitive choice while within their own culture, the choice is often judged as correct by others from that culture. This is because the criteria they used to determine if correct aligns with the beliefs, values, and norms that originally informed the intuitive choice. However, people from a different culture have different judging criteria originating from different values, beliefs, and norms, which leads them to intuitive choices, likely quite different from ours.

It will be difficult for people to explain why they made these choices, because, because the criteria they used are below conscious thoughts. That's why when you are building a team, that's why culture is the purest form of decentralized command. Because they're making decisions without even thinking about it and they're making the right decisions. If the culture is there, they can make a decision without even thinking about it.

Without even thinking about it. They're making a right decision with no thought because the culture is strong. That's what we're trying to do. Hey, should I, should I cut corners on this safety protocol? No, actually, I'm not even thinking about it. I'm going to do the right thing. Hey, Dave, actually, hey, you can't go out there without your proper PPE.

Oh yeah, sorry, got it. Not, you know what, I'm not going to say anything. Well, if the culture's there, the decision's already made. The decision's already made. We're doing the right thing. Think about that with everything that you're doing inside your organization. Your culture should drive decision making all the way. way down to the frontline troops.

And if you don't have good culture, what do you end up? You end up with Abu Ghraib. Yeah. You end up with some frontline troops that are out there on their own. They don't have good culture and they do dumb things. D. D. D.

D. D. And I don't throw that word around lightly. Yeah. And of course, I wrote D.C. in the margins. As you're reading that, I write down D.C. and you're coming back to that. And you even went like, that's a, you're talking deep D. decentralized, I mean, all the way down at the highest level, if you're running a team and just

the basic level of decentralized command is what that culture allows them to do is make decisions without asking you questions. You know, in the first step of a decentralized command is, well, I've got seven people on my team. I can't be with them all the time and I need them to do stuff without me. How do I make that happen? And the culture is what allows that to happen so they don't go, hmm, maybe I should call Jock to see what I should do in the situation. call you because I know what to do. So at the most basic level there. And then that there's just a little warning inside there though. That's just that tiny little warning that you highlighted is, oh, by the way, write is in quotes. So just let's not let's not be so committed to our culture that we don't

recognize that that has to evolve over time as well. And we don't have to, just like you said, write down and make sure, hey, are, are my people not even critically thinking about anything anymore, those decisions that are subconscious and so natural, am I at the point now where they are almost like devoid of consciousness of contemplating, is this the right thing to do in the big picture? And that the orientation, and I'm just pulling it back to the orientation of when it's almost perceived like an error. When somebody on my team, the team that has good culture, they do something that's, that's an outlier. It's like a, it's like the crash on the computer like it is so obvious in this operating system you have a massive error and everybody sees it

but they made this point of like that it might they might not even be able to explain why they did it because it's below the level of consciousness they are seeing something their perception is different and you that's a that is a warning it's a warning it's a warning that their culture is not there that's right i i got two things on this number one uh this is just a classic again example that happened today. Jamie, Operations Director, Eschalon Front.

I'm talking to Pete, Origin, and we're going over something. And Jamie calls me, I'm like, I'll call you back. You know, give me five. I text her. Talking to Pete,

45 seconds later, or two minutes later, she texts me, don't worry, made the call. And you know what I wrote back? Approved. I don't even know.

know what the call was. I don't know what she was talking about, but I know that Jamie, she called me kind of probably as just like a basic check, but then she's like, I've got this. Yeah. That's number one. Now, number two, I used to, I used to give this example of decentralized command, extreme ownership of, I try to think of the most extreme example of where I'm the CEO of a manufacturing company. and there's a thousand people that work in each one of my 10 factories. So we've got 10,000 people. And one of those people has a job where they're in a room by themselves.

And their job is to take part A and put it on top of part B. And that's it. Take part A, put it on top of part B and let it go. And if that person screws that up and doesn't do it right, how can that be my fault, right? How can that possibly be my fault? And there's, there's, it's, it's really easy to fall in the trap of, well, actually, Doc, I mean, you've got 10 factories, they have a thousand people each, this is one person, there's literally the front line, this is a minimum wage individual, how can that possibly

be your fault? And that's, that's a, that's a, that's a, the reasoning behind that, that's, the reasoning behind that That is pretty good logic. Look, there's 10,000 people. In 10 factories, there's one guy in one room. He's the lowest paid guy and he screws up this job. How can that possibly be my fault? You know what?

That can't be my fault. You know, fire the guy, move on. That's one thing. And I can fire the guy and move on, right? Here's the problem with that. What did I change? What did I change? I didn't change anything.

So if I take extreme ownership of that and say, hey listen here's what's going on I didn't get the guy trained upon as well as I should have I didn't explain to or you know it's not in the system it's not in the training I haven't set up proper training I don't have the manager explaining why it's important for a to go on top of B I haven't given the training I haven't screened my people properly because maybe this guy just isn't capable maybe he doesn't have the the cognitive capacity to do that function that's also my fault so so all these things and all these things are things that I will change and that's going to make us move in the right direction.

And look, am I going to ever get to a point where no one's going to make a mistake in that room on those, no, I'm not. But I'm going to mitigate it as much as possible every single time. And that's infinitely better than saying, no, it's not my fault. It's a frontline guy. Fireman move on. No. Take ownership of it.

How can we prevent this from happening? So I always, that was kind of my example of how I could really isolate someone that's just totally detached. I was talking to a company the other day. And I was like, I think, I think this one might be even better. if one of my seals at my training command where I've got 150 seals one of my seals gets drunk out in town and gets into a fight and gets arrested how can that possibly be my fault and maybe it's easier to understand of course what have I done wrong I haven't explained

why it's important not to get in trouble I haven't explained the behavior I haven't explained how it impacts negatively impacts the team I haven't explained how it negatively impacts the training that you're supposed to be teaching I haven't explained to him how how important it is for his family and how this is going to get him busted and how it's going to get him to lose pay and I haven't explained that your negative impact of the teams impacts America by the way and so look am I got to prevent every person from you know every guy on my command from ever no but I'm at least going to make efforts to for happening and what's the best way to do that the best way to do that is through culture

the best way to do that is through culture is by saying listen our mission here is to get these guys trained up so they can go and be prepared to go overseas do their mission and bring all the guys home as much as humanly possible that's what our mission is everything else doesn't even doesn't even come close that's what we do that's what we do every single day we save our friends lives every day by giving them the best training. You got to get that culture. So that's on me. That's on me as a leader. And I got to look at the culture. I got to take a step back and say, what is the culture? And am I going to be able to change it overnight? No, I'm not. Is any leader going to be able to change it overnight? No, or not. But do you need to start shifting in the

right direction? Yes, you do. And by the way, who's in charge of culture at an organization? Every single person that's there. If you're in an organization, you are the culture. The way you act impacts the culture. The way you think impacts the culture. The way you behave impacts the culture. And that should be empowering. That should make you feel good. That look, my boss acts like an idiot. It doesn't matter. Our culture doesn't. I'm not going to act like an idiot. What you tolerate impacts the culture. You're telling that story. I'm just thinking about why Marines don't wear flip-flops on base. And what you tolerate impacts the culture. I mean, that whole story, I mean, echo, what was, and I'm embarrassed, I'm losing the word.

We're talking about last time when you, when you eat a donut, you convince yourself it's okay. It's not justification. What's the word that you tell yourself? Negotiation? No, when you can. Rationalization. Yeah, the rationalization. And they talked about it last time was like how that's all, those are all lies you tell yourself.

You rationalize it, you justify it as, hey, there are 10,000 people in this company. Come on, man. I'm one guy. What do you really expect from me? I'm supposed to now manage the junior guy at the farthest away plan on a different time zone. It's just, and that scenario, we get asked that question, some form of that question all the time, and there's a rationalization of I can't actually do that. And when you rationalize that or convince yourself of that, what happens is nothing changes.

Nothing changes. And how easy it is to go, well, look at this scenario. Dude, it's not four people in the same room. it's that's my overseas plant with a different country and a different like cool you can rationalize your way out of that and guess what's going to happen a is not going to go on top of B and that product isn't going to work there was a little like guideline that I kind of implemented obviously on a very low level but when when you would talk about extreme long time when you talk about extreme ownership and those kinds of scenarios where it's like on the surface it's real

obvious that's not your responsibility seemingly right right okay just making sure we're saying seemingly make sure is he okay cool yeah so basically the little guidelines would be like okay don't look at it like whose fault it is or isn't just consider that automatically it's your like let's say you weren't even part of the whole situation you're just some outside consultant i don't know consultant whatever let's say you were tasked with hey from an external perspective what moves can you make to be sure that that never happens again so instead of like because you know when you say extremist i'm going to take the blame that blame kind of indicates like, oh, you should get in trouble kind of a thing, which can kind of trigger some people,

I think. It makes people scared. Yeah. It makes people scared. But you shouldn't be scared because who do I want, who do I want working for me? Dave, that comes in and says, hey, project failed because the contractors didn't do their job. Or echoes that says, hey, project failed because I didn't do a good job managing the contractor to make sure they held the line.

Yeah, fully. So like I said It's easier way to get to the point where you can understand Okay, this is on me Is to kind of use that guideline Like pretend in your head kind of thing Like what if you're tasked with making sure it never happened again And that's when all those little things that you would always say

It started to make so much more sense where it's like Oh yeah Because there is a scenario where that guy who's putting Trying to put A on top of B Where we're like he straight up just doesn't like you He doesn't like this company He doesn't even want the job He just his grandma told him to

get a, you know, all this stuff, right? And he should not be there. Yes, and whose fault is that he's there? Exactly. But again, let's not look at it. Whose fault? I'm saying as far as my little guideline scenario. So no, this isn't a guideline.

What this is, this is the little, this is a nice little crutch. Crutch. There's a nice little crutch to use that kind of helps you move towards this direction. It helps you understand. If your ego has a hard time saying this was my fault, if you need the crutch of like, okay, I'm going to look at this and just see what I can do to make sure that doesn't happen again. Yeah.

If you need that crutch. Go for it. And maybe Echo Charles is going to write a book called How to Sort of Take Ownership of Some Stuff Without Feeling Bad About It. Okay, okay. The last part was acceptable. But here's the thing.

Oh, okay, Dave, yeah, you like that. I was just fiction the title, The Crutch, how Echo sort of leads and wins. Anyway, I'm just saying that will help solve the problem of these scenarios where it's like, How could I pause? Be responsible for X, Y, Z. Like, that, to me, made it, like, a lot more clear, way more automatically.

Yeah. Made it easier for you to digest. A little bit of sugar with the medicine. That's okay. Next section, how rivals view the competitive environment. Rivals operating from within different systems often perceive that they are under threat, especially competitors with authoritarian governments. regime survival is usually the top priority in these states.

Yeah, look at North Korea, how it's all just like, we are about to be attacked. These rivals also look for opportunities to reduce perceived threats while also working to expand their competitive options. Our rivals constantly study the elements of U.S. national power in an effort to exploit, to either to offset U.F.'s advantages or to find scenes to exploit. For example, the Soviet Union during the Cold War developed an elaborate system to make, measure the correlation of forces between the United States and the USSR, which was further broken down in a correlation of economic forces, the correlation of military forces, et cetera. The thought process heavily influences Russia today as they continue to deeply study the United

States. Sun Tzu's famous statement, Know Your Enemy and Know Yourself highlights a perhaps even deeper cultural imperative for China to study the United States and the West. Damn, that's true. Finally, some rivals have a different outlook about the legitimacy of using aggressive action. like offensive cyber operations, interference in another state's internal politics, disinformation, et cetera. You can tell this is a recently written document to change the status quo in international relations.

Their actions show they do not feel bound by standing international agreements and norms unless they can use those agreements to their advantage. Instead, their behavior shows they recognize resource constraints or hard power deterrence as the only kind of limits they might respect. This is when you're playing by different rules, basically. This is when two countries are playing by two different rules. And there's just violations. I know that's one of your favorite words, Echo Charles.

Violations. People do violations that they can kind of know that they can get away with. And we are sitting here like, well, you're not allowed to do that? They're like, what do you think we're doing? Almost one of those. Well, what do you think I'm doing? Of course, of course, I'm going to heel hook you. We're wearing ghee.

Oh, well, you know, we're grappling, kind of, right? Differing approach to competition campaigning. This is the next section. All the above leads to a permanent struggle mindset. It's a good way to go through life with a permanent struggle mindset. This is like, enduring competition is what we're calling it. Hey, we're always competing. They're calling it permanent struggle.

Do you think the word struggle has a kind of, what do you call, like a, like a flavor of like you're losing? Does it kind of imply that you're kind of losing? I think, I get what you're saying. Yes, I think you get what you're saying.

Yeah, it gives you the impression that we're the underdog. Yeah. We are struggling, right? Yeah. If you were to say, if you're, if you say I'm struggling,

that doesn't mean I'm winning. Yeah. Yeah. Right? That's a different, different scenario. Yeah. Struggling.

So yes. So when you end up with a permanent struggle mindset, we are behind and it continues on. There is no at-piece condition even when they choose to cooperate in a particular area. So even when it's like even well, we're good. We'll do this trade deal. Cool. There's still a struggle going on behind the scenes. It will be question.

It becomes a question of when and how they will compete, not if they will be competing. With this as the mindset, the tools used to create competitive advantages are limited only by human creativity and available resources. These rivals might take an action primarily to advance their economy, but they also will attempt to leverage that action to gain an advantage. This mindset causes them to try and exploit at any chance they see emerging. When they believe their competitors are distracted by other world events, they will seize on any opportunity this presents.

Distraction, distracted by other events. It's so obvious how this stuff plays out every single day in the news The following are common characteristics of our rivals approach to competition There's a bunch of bullet points strong central command and control clear strategic goals And you know people talk about China and just these they're like they're playing this massively long strategic game They're playing way long game they don't care they're looking at their people like oh yeah kind of like oh so whatever Look, we got some people that are working as slaves or human rights are horrible or we got to eliminate this group. No factor.

We're playing a long strategic game here. We got a game to win. Clear strategic goals. Powerful narratives. Hello, propaganda. Weaponizing benign activities. And they actually gave a big example of what that was all about. It's like weaponizing like tourists and cutting off tourists from going to certain areas.

Recruitment of ethnic. Diasporas. So those are fleeing ethnic groups. I'll find out who's kind of been hard dumb by and see if we can bring them into the fold. Domination of ethnic media. Interference in local politics. Strong enforcement action. Fostering relationships with local groups, including criminal and terrorist organizations.

Assertion of extraterritorial rights. Intelligence and covert operations. Encouragement of dependencies, powerful military cover. expanded concept of combined arms acceptance of high levels of risk postured for the long term They combine these characteristics in a novel and innovative ways to pursue their goals while taking advantage of United States and its allies Blind spots and then they have parentheses like being quote at peace That's like a blind spot for us. Oh we're at peace. We're not at war with them and think what it what you know From from this whole this whole time we've been talking about

winning without the enemy know that we're even fighting. They don't want to provoke us. They want us to be like thinking everything is cool. And meanwhile, there's maneuvers happening. A rival concept for competition. Next section. The idea of a theory of victory applied to competition. Warfighting explains how the Marine Corps uses maneuver warfare

to shatter an enemy's cohesion throughout, through a variety of rapid-focused and unexpected actions, which create turbulent, and rapid, turbulent and rapidly deteriorating situation with which the enemy cannot cope. That's a good idea. Rapid-focused unexpected actions. That's what we're trying to do.

This is maneuver warfare's theory of victory to splinter the enemy system so that it can no longer function effectively. We can apply the idea of a theory of victory to competition to discern how rivals approach it. Each rival uses its own theory of in competition, but we can make some useful generalizations, Marines can use to analyze specific competitors. First, each of this class of rivals governs itself through an authoritarian power structure

with regime survival as its top priority. This heavily influences all the other competitive choices made both domestically and internationally in these rivals theories. Next, these rivals strive to avoid war with the United States. That's what I just said. And its allies. Note that war is not the same as violence. These rivals will selectively cross over the threshold of violence against the United States or its allies and partners,

but will be careful to keep a tight rain on it so it does not escalate into war. These discrete pulses of violence can be useful for boundary stretching and to create hesitation. This is not a fixed principle. As rivals continue to study the United States, there may come a time when they believe baiting the United States or its allies into war gives them an advantage if they also. believe they have developed the strength to prevail. A little warning there. A little warning. With these two principles as background, our rivals approach competition is a constant

state of being. So every decision and action affects it. Thus, they are either setting conditions that will make it easier to achieve their goals or they are reaching their goals through slow increments or opportunistic lunges. This is what they're doing. They're constantly paying attention to this. They constantly have this massive strategic goal way down the line that they're playing that long long long game We can summarize their their theory of victory and competition like this these rivals think of the relationship as winning without fighting

Or winning war before it starts and not as competition Regime survival is the number one goal and they believe their regime is constantly under threat so competition is one of perpetual struggle every They take shapes the environment to make it easier to reach their goals either domestically or internationally in this environment They are they are either incrementally moving toward their goals or on alert to seize one if an opportunity presents itself So that's what we've got to pay attention to wrap up this chapter With the conclusion to compete effectively Marines need to focus their potential on their potential competitors especially those who see themselves as rivals to the United States and its allies, truly understanding these potential rivals

requires serious reflection and critical thinking. The Oudoloup offers a model to examine why and how rivals approach competition differently. The strength of orientation affects all aspects of the model. The elements contained in a person's group's orientation, work in the background. It takes deep study to first identify these elements and then learn how they affect the decisions

and actions a rival takes. And then it just goes on, Their mindset of perpetual struggle means they are constantly shaping the environment to make it easier for them to reach their goals. It also means they constantly take incremental steps toward their goals while remaining alert for the chance to pounce on them if an opportunity arises. That's a tough competitor. That's a tough competitor. Constantly, constantly making maneuvers. And now we move into Chapter 5, the conduct of competition.

The challenge. The challenge is to develop a concept of competition for Marines that stays in balance with our preparation for war, remains consistent with our understanding of the nature and theory of competition, and accounts for the realities of international strategic competition. So this is a big balancing thing we're working on. Maneuver warfare's influence. Marines can use maneuver warfare principles to great effect in competition. We still seek to achieve our goals in a flexible and opportunistic way.

That's a beautiful statement about leadership. That's a beautiful statement about leadership. Not just about maneuver warfare, but leadership. You seek to achieve your goals in a flexible and opportunistic way. Isn't it way better for me to say, oh, Dave, you want to go into that market area? Great. I'll tell you what. Run with it.

That's an opportunity for me to grow the business based on, Dave's drive. And by the way, I was thinking about going somewhere else, but Dave wants to go there. Cool. The flexible. We seek to achieve a relative tempo advantage that we can gain the initiative. Marines in-depth understanding of the Oudaloupe is relevant everywhere on the competition continuum. Marines should not seek to reinvent maneuver warfare for competition, but rather think through

how it can be applied across the competition continuum and not. just to the continuum's subset that deals with war and the various forms of warfare. Orienting on the competitor. Next section. Orienting on the competitor is fundamental to successful competition. We develop our understanding of the competitor system and then exploit the weaknesses we find in it. I'd read that with the wrong voice. Sorry to the United States Marine Corps.

Let me rehash that. We develop our understanding of the competitor system and then it. exploit the weaknesses we find in it. Much better. We develop models of the rival system and then use these models to share our understanding of it with others. We then develop ways to test our model in the real world. Real world.

We observe our tests, then use feedback from these observations to improve the model. Marines learn about the OODA loop early in their service, which helps them move through this cycle smoothly. Warfighting teaches that we should try to get inside and, Adversaries thought processes and see them as they see themselves so that we can set them up for defeat. There's Dave Burke, adversary wing commander. What was your name? Adversary officer.

I kind of elevated you. You got like a wing commander. That's good. That's a beautiful thing. We take you and we say your job is to think like the enemy. Yep. It's cool. At Trade Act, we did that too.

We didn't do it in such an official manner, but it was. okay, trade at opposing force guys, the guys that were working directly for me at trade at, you're going to go and act like the enemy. Did you call it red cell? If I, if I, we called it op for. Yeah. We've heard the different terms. Yeah.

I think it's all the same thing. It's you behave like the enemy. Partially is it's, it gives your guys realistic training. But it also is to think, why are they doing the things that they're doing? Why would they acquire the weapons and do the formations? There's a whole bunch of reasons why you would do that. Yeah. And then what's cool is because we'd read AAR is what the enemy did.

the enemy started using false walls. We started using false walls. The enemy did barricaded shoes, we do. So we would follow the reports and do what they did. But what's really cool, too, is when you're opt for, you can see what it looks like. You can see what our tactics look like. You see where the strength and weaknesses are. You see how obvious it is when a guy's doing something stupid.

You're like, I'm never going to do that. Yeah. I was just going to say it keeps you from falling into the trap of thinking everything they're doing is stupid. Because everything they're doing is different, right? Like we see that. Oh, you're saying the enemy. The enemy. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. I mean that that, so we don't fall in the trap of, oh, they're doing this and that's dumb. We'd never do that. And being dismissive of the fact that that move that they are making, which we probably wouldn't make. Oh, hang on. Why are they? Oh, now I see.

That. Exactly. And there's those moments of, oh, hey, hang on a second. This is why they're doing that. And if you don't put yourself in their eyes, the easy trap, the ego trap is, it's dumb. What do they know? And that's the orientation. That's why it's all centered around orientation is if you understand their perspective,

you're far less likely. We have this saying like when we see something that we don't think is it concerned us, we scoff. It scoff. Hey, he did this. Scoff. No factor. Don't care. And over time, what you will do is everything that's sort of different from what you would

do is wrong. That's like the classic ego responses. You didn't do it the way I would do it? You're wrong. What's the scoff term? Can you explain that to me again? So let's say you and I are fighting in our airplanes and you do some. move, you beam out to the west or you flank in some direction and I think it's a no, it's not a

concern to me, I'll scoff that move. I don't even acknowledge it. Don't even care. Do whatever you want. Scoff. No factor. No factor because I'm going. Isn't it, isn't an arrogant move? Well, it, it can be. There are times I actually don't want to respond to what you're doing. You might be baiting me into something, making a bad decision. You might be pulling me into a place that I don't think I want to go. So there are times that I want to dismiss just I'm not going to react to that. I am not going to respond to your move. But if it's habitual, and I determine every single time you do something, it's no factor. Sooner or later, it actually will be a factor.

And one of the ways that we counter that is the orientation of recognizing while they're doing that. And that's what I got to do as the adversary officer, is think like them. And hey, this is why I did that. And we would build scenarios, the training scenarios against the students, I would create those or help create those. We're turning this, we're turning that. We're doing all these things to try to get to this outcome. And if the student could dissect and understand that, then he understands what's going on.

And if not, then he doesn't. And that's a bad thing. Check. Continuing on, it is essential that we understand our adversary on their own terms. We should not assume that every adversary thinks as we do, competes as we do, or shares our values and objectives. Marines in the Marine Corps are strong tools for our nation to compel or deter our rivals. As discussed in Chapter 2, we know that the target of our compelance or deterrence must cooperate.

even if they're unwilling, if we are to be effective. Our knowledge of the competitor's system will help us understand their thinking enough to make good judgments on how we can force this possible unwilling cooperation. That's such a good, such a strange way of putting it, unwilling cooperation. But it happens. It happens in jiu-jitsu. I start to choke you echo. You have to defend your neck. It's unwilling, but you've got to do it.

You gotta do it. Wait, that's the same as coercion, right? Yeah, similar. Marines and the Marine Corps are also strong tools in a strategy of attraction. We can demonstrate our national values through efforts such as humanitarian assistance programs providing highly credible support

to the informational element of national power. Marines regularly play a large role in building and then sustaining relationships with allies and partners. Strong networks, such as these increase our competitive options and create challenges for our country. competitors. Next section is shaping the action.

Our competition goals are derived from our vital national interests, and we must think ahead if Marines are to support reaching these goals. Boy, if you're in charge of a company, don't you hope and pray that everyone in your company, every division in your company, everyone on your team is thinking about your vital interests inside your organization? In thinking ahead, we establish that what we want to accomplish, why and how. provides a vision for succeeding in competition, which in turn helps align the actions taken towards reaching the goals.

In both the near and long term, we orient on our competitor to develop our understanding of their system. We continually refine our models of their system so that we can focus on their weaknesses, including increasing our understanding of how their culture affects their decision-making process. Man, you've got to know what your competitor's thinking. They just say this over and over again. Similarly, we must try to see ourselves through our competitors' eyes in order to identify

our own vulnerabilities that they may try to exploit. To influence the future, we consider how we can exploit our competitors' weakness while protecting our own. This usually takes the form of planning. I think beyond planning, it takes the form, should take the form or at least extend to the form of war gaming or red selling or whatever you want to call it. Totally. Force on force training.

our plans will not always produce a detailed timetail of events as we accept that competitions may unfold over a long time instead we attempt to shape the general conditions of the competition since marine support our larger national competitive effort we first need to determine who we are supporting this support limited only by our imaginations and available resources can take a variety of forms across all our operating domains for example our force posture exists in all domains and can contribute to to the deterrence in these domains. Through the diplomatic and informational elements of power, it can also improve relationships with our allies and partners. Force posture can help develop ties with partner militaries that lead to attracting top-performing international officers to our service schools, which further deepens the relationship,

expanding relationships like this, shapes our campaign of competition by increasing the potential number of competitive actions we can take. Think about what you can do inside your organization if you're in business, if you just take that section about working with other people, training other. What if you took people from other companies,

maybe not quite competitors, but maybe competitors, and you brought them on board and you train them and you help them and you develop a relationship and you find out that they have areas of weaknesses that you could help them and maybe you have some areas of weakness that they could do. Imagine if you took that long-term strategic vision

of how to grow your influence. Look, man, that's kind of, that's, that's kind of my career in a nutshell, this exchange thing or this, this sharing of information. Your Marine Corps. My Marine Corps career. So as a Marine, I spent so much of my time not being in a traditional Marine Corps role. And, you know, early on in flight school, like the Marine Corps goes to Navy flight training. So we're very similar.

And it's not a Marine Corps centric thing. But even in my experience, you know, my first four years in the Marine Corps, I was in a Marine Corps squadron, but we were attached to a carrier. So we spent a lot of time with the Navy. doing things in Navy way. And then when I went to Top Gun, that's a Navy command. I was basically kind of an exchange officer. So I'm kind of really seeing how the other services do it. I did a full Air Force exchange where I was basically in the Air Force for three and a half years.

I commanded that Air Force division as a Marine to serve the Air Force. And then all these different things that I did very much interacted as an exchange to other services. And what it got me out of is kind of that classic Marine Corps echo chamber of, this is how the Marine Corps operates. And I learned so much. And just that sharing of information from, and rivals is a strong word. We're not rivals,

but the Air Force and the Navy, the Marine Corps are different. Certainly we're all looking for the same end, but the point you just made of the power of that, I'm probably not going to go to a rival company that isn't going to want to give me their people, but inside different divisions that have kind of competing interest inside your organization

and getting one guy from marketing to go spend six months on the operation side. Or one guy, you know, a couple guys from the operation side, spend some time with sales where they see it and truly understand what's going on, the power of that inside your organization. So you don't just buy off on the narrative of, listen, you join the Marine Corps, you're not going to get a lot of feedback that the Marine Corps isn't doing everything right until you

get out of the Marine Corps, go, oh, damn, you guys are doing things a lot differently with us, and that seems to be working really well. And of course, vice versa. But I think there's a ton of power that I was really lucky in my experience to get to do that way more than most Marines get to do. And it helped me individually. It helped the services and it helped the Marine Corps. It was awesome.

Yeah, old school shipboard deployments that I did working with the Marine Corps. It was so lucky. I was working with, you know, calling in battalions and working with the air wings on the flat top. And just was so awesome for me. And I learned so much. It was ridiculous. It's so easy to create a story or a narrative in your mind

of how dumb everything else is when you don't experience it. it. And it's so, it happens so naturally in your subconscious of the differences means they're wrong. And the minute you spend some time over there doing it and you see from the perspective, the orientation changes is you think you see how valuable it is, whether it's your competitors, whether it's your peers, whatever it is. That change in perspective, that change in orientation immediately reveals a whole bunch of things you would never see if you just looked at it from your perspective. And I'm like, dumb. I'm not doing that. I was very lucky in my career to get to see that over and over from different perspectives and changing my orientation of the problem all the time. Yeah.

Yeah. If you're in a leader's, a very simple way to do that. When you're in a leadership position, go down and check out some other areas, see what they're doing. Totally. Go run that thing through the line. Go operate that piece of equipment for a half an hour. Go check out that job site. See what's going on.

So many good ways to change your perspective, improve your perspective. See more. Next section, combined arms. Combined arms is the full integration of arms in such a way that to counteract one, the enemy must be more vulnerable to another. We pose the enemy not just with a problem, but with a dilemma, a no-win situation. This is the way Marines fight and win battles. This idea also governs how Marines compete,

even though we broaden no-win situations to include careful consideration of positive some options. Win-win options. The governing idea is to orchestrate all of our tools together in ways that are most favorable to us. A combined arms mindset leads wanted to consider how to use multi-domain tools of all potential partners in an effort to reach one goals. The idea is to use all available resources to best advantage.

Internal to the Marine Corps, we look to combine complementary characteristics of different types of units to create a competitive advantage. externally we look to combine our capabilities with those of joint force to create advantage we apply the same mindset in competition when we combine our capabilities with those of our joint and interagency partners what is the Marine Corps saying here we're going to look we're going to look and utilize and work with and cooperate with as many different elements as we possibly can to get the best advantage we can over our our rivals the same mindset applies to combining the complementary characteristics

of Marines with other partners, whether they're from other U.S. government department or from an allied country, we orient on the competitor because we want to make sure the combined arms dilemma we intend to present in competition is actually a problem for them. This mindset leads Marines to develop holistic plans designed to reach specific goals in both war and along the larger competition continuum. In competition, the idea of combined arms extends through joint force interagency to allies and partners. So we don't necessarily have to, we don't have to be at war at all to go out and work

and combine our efforts with other elements that can give us advantages. Next section. Campaign of competition. Embracing the competition mindset leads to the realization that the Marine Corps plays an important but supporting role in our nation's various competitions. Now, I have to take a pause there because this idea of supporting role in the military, it's the word supporting in the military is can be taken as offensive, right? Because what it means is, you know, if Dave's got a platoon and I've got a platoon,

Dave and Dave is assigned as the supporting platoon and I'm the main effort, Dave is inferior to me. The backup. That's the backup. That's the second string. He's the JV team. You can throw whatever you want to throw on it. The idea that you're in a supporting role is generally viewed as a negative, especially in military doctrine.

Well, if you let your ego get involved. And what the Marine Corps is doing here is beautiful, which is saying, hey, we play an important, but supporting role. They get it. They're like, hey, we're supporting. It's fine. This forms our approach. And by the way, that was one of the best things that we did in tasking a bruiser in Ramadi.

It was, hey, we're here to support. Hey, hey, battalion commander. Hey, brigade commander. Hey, company commander. We're here to support you. By the way, we're going to kill a bunch of bad guys. We're going to have the freaking do the best operations we can possibly do. You want to call supporting?

Cool, we're supporting. That's fine. And by the way, by us being, by us supporting a battalion, that means that battalion is rolling out, Kazavak is rolling out, tanks is rolling out fire support, we're getting all the air, we're getting everything we want. We're getting more assets than we could have ever imagined. And we're supporting them. It's even though we always said we were supporting, what we had 13 guys in an Overwatch position.

Meanwhile, they have a battalion out there to help us. Get to that position, get out of that position. It's amazing. But the attitude of, hey, we're here to support. Well, that's the attitude that gave you all the flexibility to do what you wanted. It's the exact same approach that I took. And I remember when I first got there, I went around all the units in the AOR that I had a connection to. And the question, the literal question I asked all of the commanders was, how can I support you?

And what they want to know is, well, what do you have? and you know what I had? I had $80 million worth of airplanes that they couldn't have I'm like hey I've got this this I got Marines I have we had gun trucks so I owned Humvees

with 50 cows and marked 240 dollars so I had a bunch of stuff and it was just any way you want to use these tools I can provide them for you and that attitude coming to them is I'm here to support you is what led to me

kind of being able to do whatever I wanted on the battlefield, almost anything, had I walked in and be like, this is how I operate. This is the exact opposite thing. They, you know, and the other part of it too is I didn't own any battle space. They could have just said, you can't come here, get off the battlefield. They literally could have pushed me off. I mean, I had no authority at all to operate.

We were in the same exact scenario. Same exact approach. Back to the book. This forms our approach to developing our campaigns of competition campaign goals, are established by analyzing enduring interests and how they are being affected by current policy. For Marines, these goals are further refined by aligning them with the theater combatant commanders'

objectives at every point on the competition continuum, both in day-to-day operations below the violence threshold and in the event contingencies. Ideally, in the event of the contingencies, ideally the theater objectives will be aligned with inter-agency goals as well. So they're really paying attention and breaking things down

by orienting on the competitor, we start to develop theories on how we can reach our campaign goals, even though we are in competition with our rival. Marines' understanding of the Uda loop leads us to conclude that the campaign choices we make in the planning are hypothesis, the campaign actions we take test these hypotheses,

and the Uda loops, and the Uda's many feedback loops help us refine our decisions. The disciplined yet creative application of this process is what allows us to gain the initiative in competition and set it simple. Disciplined yet creative. Disciplined yet creative. Timelines associated with competitive campaigns are often quite long.

Some extend over several decades. Yeah, that's where it's tough on America. That's where it's tough on America because our regimes only last four to eight years at a whack, right? And then generally there's going to be a change in regimes. There's going to be a different, you know, a different campaign of competition happening. Yeah, you were talking about the long game and you were talking about China. I was thinking like they measure it and they call them dynasties. They're like thousands of years and the history that they have compared to our history and the recognition of, hey, you're here as part of the

long game, their version of the long game is a lot different than our version of the long game. Yeah. And there's also the party. That's it. The party. Absolutely. And that strategy is going to stay the same. Not a ton of infighting going on over there.

Yeah. On that. That's a different viewpoint. Different orientation. The iterative nature of competition matched to discipline use of the Oudaloup will help planners determine how aggressive one should be in pursuit of campaign goals. acknowledging these long timelines leads us to consider the consistency of our competitive goals. If we believe we may need to take many small steps towards a goal over the course of months,

years, decades, or decades, then our objectives should remain relatively stable during that time. This is why we look first to our national interest before we derive our competition and campaigning goals. Once those are determined, we then decide how Marines can support achieving them. The campaigning mindset needs to be applied when considering competitive activities, especially long-term thinking and integrating our actions with others. Consistency and sustainability lead us to consider the pace or tempo of competition. This tempo is often driven by a cycle of action and counteraction. Each campaign, and I'm skipping through some stuff here, each campaign has a narrative

which provides context and purpose for the competition. Our narrative competes with that of our rival. To defeat a competitor's narrative, we need to replace it with a more persuasive one. Simply denying someone's story may actually reinforce it in the minds of target audience. You can't just, you can't just, that rumor is going to come. You've got to tell the story. You've got to tell the right story. That is why we need to replace it with a more compelling story.

Sorry. Next line. For example, two firms may sell an identical commodity. Their respective narratives will explain why they are the right. choice to win the business of a particular customer. The stronger narrative will displace the weaker one. Conclusion, our war fighting philosophy of maneuver warfare is the philosophy that animates our approach to competition as well. So for the Marine Corps, maneuver warfare is the way we are thinking about everything. Marines take the same flexible and opportunistic approach to competition

as they do towards fighting battles. The most important tenet of maneuver warfare is to orient on the enemy, and this influence is also felt in competition. We orient on our competitor. Now, this one, when I read this, I was like immediately freaked out because I said, wait, wait,

the most important thing of maneuver warfare is to orient on the enemy. And I was like, oh, no, the most important tenet of maneuver warfare. Because maneuver warfare without leadership doesn't do anything. Leadership's the most important thing. But if we want to talk

tenants, I guess we can break it down, that orienting on the enemy or on the competitor. Sorry, I'm going straight to war. I'm all the way there on the continuum. We need to develop an understanding of our rival if we are to create an effective plan that will help us prevail in competition. We must understand their system where it is strong and where it is weak. This allows us to shape the environment by developing a clear vision for our competitive activities. This vision also allows us to identify the partners with whom we need to coordinate.

Marines fight using combined arms and we must compete in the same way. This is the foundational mindset for determining how we can present a dilemma to our competitor. Marines in the Marine Corps are essential tools in our nation's effort to advance our vital national interests. The Marine Corps makes its greatest contributions near the threshold of violence on the Competition continuum. This means that individual Marines need to prepare themselves to act on both sides of that threshold and to do so in disciplined ways that advance the nation's interests. Here's the closing paragraph for podcast deep.

Competing is a way of thinking. Like maneuver warfare, it is a state of mind born of boldness. boldness, intellect, initiative, and opportunism. It's very interesting. They really start

chiming in on this word opportunism. They really start chiming in on that word. And if you start to pay attention to that, if you start to pay attention to the fact that what you should be looking for is opportunities and how often do opportunities go to waste? You want to talk about a life lesson. Boldness, intellect, initiative.

Opportunities, where are they at? It is about understanding our competitor systems so that we can develop, sustain, and adapt our competitive advantage so that the Marine Corps will always be a useful tool for the nation in the enduring competition. That is the normal state of international relations. One last little plug for the Marine Corps. Long game. They're playing the long game for sure. That is it. That wraps up.

That wraps up this publication for us. I think we've probably spent eight or nine hours. through this book and those this is the fourth podcast didn't do too bad today got got God only knows how much time and effort the Marine Corps took and put into putting this together I mean what's the man hours behind this how many people what were you saying you think it's six seven eight people I that's what I'm picture on the team that's on the team yeah that's in there that's in the room that's got the sections and and then there's someone kind of overseeing the whole thing

And then it's getting signed off by the commandant. He's giving guidance. You can tell the commonance in the game with this stuff. He's not just signing this off. He's making corrections. There's red lines on this in the written with the commandant's pen. Am I wrong? No, I think you're right.

And I'm thinking, too, like, how many of these pubs are out there, these Marine Corps doctrinal pubs? It's not a, I mean, it's not some massive number. It's not a thousand of these things. he's had two in the last two years. Yeah, like there are probably common on that did the entire time is common on

and none of these pubs came out under their watch. He's done two and two years. Obviously, this is clearly an important thing for General Burger. This is a thing for him. Yeah, well, learning was the first new pub in how, yeah, it was like a decade. So it was a long time.

Yes. It was a long time. And this one came out one year later. Yeah. So this is, this is wheelhouse priority for him. And this isn't like some big giant stretch from learning either.

This competing pub is not like unrelated. This is, I was going to say that we got cousins here. Yes, right? Absolutely. Yes. We got learning.

We got competing. Those are cousins. There's a thread between those two, a clear thread. They, the leadership thread that's in both of these as well, the leadership thread is really important. When you start looking at that continuum of leadership and the continuum of leadership and the

continuum of an influence and the, the way of thinking for competing and you start thinking that way of thinking for competing as also a way of leading. That's a huge asset to your toolbox of thought to bring to the table as a leader. That's what has been on my mind this whole time.

From the beginning to the conclusion is how tiny little tweak you need to make in reading just this pub about competing, which is really, at least at the top level, is the Marine Corps fighting against other countries, how tiny a tweak there is to make that this is a leadership public. This is a leadership book. And it applies to running a business, running a team.

This tiny language change goes from fighting competitors to leading your own people. This is a leadership publication from beginning. And you want to think on the third one, one of the previous two, you did the influence continuum. You just pulled from that. I'm like, just listening to that, just eating that up of. And I remember thinking, man, the Marine Corps should have just just. said that in here and yeah they probably would have had to double the length of this thing because every time I read something there's a place to go diving deeper into that but despite that there's

no question in my mind that they the authors just recognize and the leadership influence it's sitting inside there and even the examples they pull from they're pulling all these examples if you're running a business this is what you should do and so there is that when you know the way broadly you see it in all things and I'm watching and seeing and this thing hearing you talk and just making the leadership piece to that, but from beginning to end, that connection is absolutely there. And it doesn't take some big change in perspective to see it inside here. And to learn from it. Totally.

And, you know, the fact that the Marine Corps, look, they could choose a bunch of different things to dive into. And the fact that they dove into this to run their organization and help their organization be prepared and grow, that's just an indie. of the importance of this mindset, of this way of thinking of how to compete, how our rivals compete, and how we can compete

in a better way. And with that, do you see that softball just get tossed up? Echo Charles. With that, speaking of trying to compete better and do better, Echo Charles, do you have any suggestions on that? Yes, thank you.

Softball, not very competitive. They said in a different chapter that competing in influence, right, is like the same thing. No, that's me. That's what I said. That was my whole. That was my whole. That's what really made me think we need to cover this on the podcast. Was, hey, we talk about competition.

That's good. If we eliminated all the leadership talk and influence talk out of this podcast, it would have been done in three hours, two hours, two and a half hours. Okay, I guess maybe half the time. Maybe half the time. Once we started talking about leadership and influence, and that definitely adds to it. But yes, so we have been talking about it from a leadership perspective and an influence perspective. So like competing can be even at the end of the continuum or the spectrum or whatever where it's like war. It's like you're influencing them to submit essentially.

Yes, I can beat you into doing what I want you to do. Yeah. Right, which we don't want. No, we don't. We don't even want to cross the threshold of violence. So that's the leadership continuum, the leadership influence continuum, which by the way, is also very closely related to leadership strategy and tactics, a little something called the escalation of counseling, which is, you know, I'm using the minimum force required. I'm just saying, hey, Dave, I notice you relate today is everything okay. That's where it starts.

I use the escalation of counseling, by the way. That's a good thing to use. One of the children in my household. And it was good because it was the kind where you don't really, it was basically, hey, do this chore, right? Or else. But I'm not the kind where I'm like, hey, do it now, you know, because I want it done now. I'm just, hey, just do it, right? He straight up forgot.

I forgot next day, not done. And it's not the kind arbitrary chore. It's the kind. You just kind of gave away the child in question. nonetheless gender reveal nonetheless the so busted when I was a kid that kind of stuff happened to me where I forgot to do the chore that not only did I get told to do I agree that I would do it by a scolding was coming you put forgotten quotes does that mean you really didn't forget you just gaffed it off or did you actually

forget not all the time check but you if yeah like that if you get scolded that's crossing some threshold at some point, right? What is it the cooperation? I don't know. I know there's a threshold you cross over when you start scolding them rather than, hey, like how you always do? Hey, you, you all good? You need anything or whatever. Yep. Speaking of success, I've been taking joint warfare consistently for the last, I don't know, one month, two months. Joint warfare is what we're taking to take care of our joints. We're not slack on the workouts or taking the joint warfare and super creole oil also good ways to support your immunity vitamin D3 and cold war don't forget about these things very important also discipline and discipline go in a can capsules powder

that's it do you know i'm a little let's just say disappointed in your whole approach on that section today i don't know if you're like feeling down or maybe you didn't drink enough discipline I didn't feel any of that What you just said Oh like my energy was off Energy was low I'm not like you like Let me let me let me

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It just shows up. Yeah, that is a big deal too. If only your son could see. subscribe to doing chores. It would just kind of like, oh, like a little reminder. Actually, that's a good idea. So look, you just establish a system that you don't have to be told to do the tree.

You just say, hey, every day at this very specific time, you check the trash. That's a system. That would work good. Yeah. The challenge you have is trying to get him to recognize how that's to his benefit. With this other stuff, it's sort of undeniable that it's to your back. So there's not some big negotiation going on and like why this is good for you. That is yeah, that is a challenge get it actually have a lot more challenges than that on the last like in like getting your spirit up a little bit anyway

Speaking of the so you got to look at me like that you make it worse with a with the looking at me like by the way We want me to look at look at Dave but you're talking look at it anyway. So yes, they sent me a whole thing a whole package of the discipline And I understand what you mean by when you're looking in the cupboard and seeing it like, oh, you know, when you run low, you'll get like a little sense of panic. What's the one right before panic? Well, I thought. What's a tormenting like before panic? Like not anxiety, like a little, you know, just nagging something.

Yes. You see it full up when it fills up. Satisfy. I don't like your gas tank, you know, when the gas tank goes all the way to empty and you're like, oh, I don't know what that's. It's like, so when you do fill, fill it back up, it's like a really like a satisfying kind of feeling. You know what it's crazy? I went in the cupboard the other day and there was one super cruel left. And I actually walked in through my bedroom and I told my wife, emergency.

I say, hey, emergency. There's only one super cruel left. And she goes, what? And she walks out and then she comes in like, oh, no, it's in this other cupboard. You got a box. I'll see you. Okay. You already actually that's the exact terminology I use to fulfill my new discipline go package to be little. Emergency emergency. Emergency. Oh yeah. He's right on it too, by the way. So yes. No need for emergencies. No need. Go on there. OriginMane.com. Subscribe. That's free shipping. And you and it's 10. If you subscribe, it's 10% off. So it's a good deal. We're trying to, trying to hook it up. Also, you can get the cans at Wawa on the East Coast. Full chain. Any Wawa, you can go in there. You can get some.

Vitamin shop, you get it there too. So, hey, if you want something, get something. So we're going to get getting something. Get some jeans as well, not at Wawa. Oh, yeah. By the way. So this is American-made denim from the roots to the genes.

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All Made in America. Also, we have our own store. jocco store.com. This is where you can get your discipline equals freedom, apparel, if you will. Shirts, hoodies, hats on there. Some more rash guards on there as well. Got some new soap. Warrior Kid's soap.

Got that on there. That's a critical one. I've been getting reports that the Jocco. So, okay, so there's three, how many flavors? There's multiple flavors. There's killer soap, jockel soap, chupers soap, chupers soap, and warrior kid soap. Oh yeah. The warrior kid soap is yellow and blue.

Yes. Your kid colors. Yes, sir. The joccal soap smells the best as far as a consensus goes. Interesting. See what I'm saying? Interesting. That's the deal.

Anyway, jococcal store.com, that's where you can represent while you're on the path. What about the shirt locker that you're all excited about? Yes, very excited. By the way, every month, new shirt. Every month. Subscribe to that, you know, if you're into that. There's probably a lot of people that are saying, oh, wow, it's called the shirt locker. That's cool.

I want to check that out as opposed to the old name. Yeah. T-shirt, crap. All right, cool. Check that out. Subscribe to the podcast. We also have some other podcasts. So subscribe to those well, the unraveling, which Daryl and I are working on some new episodes of that.

You can also go to jaco underground.com where we do a little. alternative amplifying podcast and you can you can listen to it there it costs money cost $8.18 a month but we're trying to sort of have a little contingency scenario in case things happen in the future and also $8 and $18 only one person has guessed it correctly only one one that I know of yes well that's I've seen one must be the same one yeah and through this though through this process, there are like so many different like applicable layers. People are putting layers on that I'm like,

oh, maybe that's a cool layer. I didn't know about it. Yeah, so $8.18. So we actually, there's a reason for it. There's layers behind it. But now there's layers that we didn't know about that now are now layers. Layers have been added. We'll put it to you that way.

But at some point, we got to announce the official. So, hey, if you want to check that out, if you want to check out that podcast, go to jocco wonderground.com. $8.18 a month. And if you look, we want information out there. If you can't afford that, just email assistance at jocco underground.com and we will get you taken care of.

Like I said, we also have the unraveling. We have the grounded podcast. We have the Warrior Kid podcast. We got a YouTube channel where Echo. Makes videos. It's cool. Echoes makes videos and it's cool. Psychological warfare, an album with tracks.

MP3 availability there. Flipside Canvas.com. You can get stuff to hang on your. wall got some books oh I got a new book it's called final spin it's a story it's a novel it's a poem it's well it's available for pre-order now leadership strategy and tactics field manual the code the evaluations of protocol discipline equals freedom field manual way of the warrior kid four field manual field manual warrior kid one two and three mike in the dragons about face extreme ownership dichotomy leadership we got to

Eschlamfront, which is our leadership consultancy, where we take all this information that we have learned and we help you apply it inside your organization to solve problems through leadership. Go to eshalomfront.com for that. We're at EFonline.com where we are teaching leadership. There's courses that you can take that will help you and everyone in your organization get aligned and win. Go to EFonline.com for that. we've got musters which are live events that we do we they've been shifting due to COVID so check extreme ownership.com if you want to come to one of our live events they're freaking awesome just just saying EF Overwatch executive leadership for your company go to

EFoverwatch.com and if you want to help service members if you want to help active duty if you want to help retired service members if you want to help their families if you want to help Gold Star families, then check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. And if you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org. And if you want more of my tedious tales, and you certainly heard some today, or you need more of Echo's convoluted contemplations or Dave's nascent narratives, you can find us on the InternetWebs on Twitter, on Instagram. And if you only speak Echo Charles, that's also only known as Legram.

And you can find us on Facebook. David is at David R. Burke. Echoes at Equit Charles. And I am at Jocka Willink. And thanks to all the servicemen and women out there on the front lines worldwide, worldwide, protecting us from forces of darkness and tyranny. And to our police and law enforcement and firefighters, paramedics, EMTs dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol secret service, and first responders,

thank you for standing on the lines here at home to keep us safe. And everyone else out there, yes, you are competing all the time, but make sure you are competing in the right arenas for the right reasons. Don't waste your time and your resources and your effort on competitions that are driven by your ego. Make sure the competition makes sense. make sure that you are competing not just to beat someone else but infinitely more important you are competing to get where you want to be that is how you win well that and actually

going out every day and getting after it and until next time this is dave and echo and jaco out