Jocko Podcast - 551: Relationships Over Rank. Trust Over Authority

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

>Subscribe to Jocko Underground Full Episodes< Breaking down why strong relationships consistently outperform rank, how great leaders develop confident teams instead of micromanaging them, and why every interaction is an opportunity to train. From chain of command to building trust, this episode is a practical guide to creating teams that win under pressure.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko Podcast number 551 with Echo Charles and me. Jocko Willink, good evening, Echo. Good evening. So last podcast, episode 550, we introduced a book called the company commander's handbook. It's from the United States Marine Corps. And obviously the Marine Corps executes all kinds of missions, all kinds of tasks, all kinds of projects. And we got to remember that this goes from basic administrative stuff like paperwork, all the way up to the most complex and dangerous combat operations. And all of that, they do through leadership.

And they've learned a lot of lessons along the way 250 years worth of lessons. You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of lessons in some pretty tough environments, the toughest environments. So they've captured a lot of these lessons learns about leadership in this handbook. And so if you want to go back

and listen to episode 550 and then come back here and we're going to cover down on some of the other lessons from the company commander handbook, United States Marine Corps. This next section is leading the company.

And this particular one is chain of command. And it starts off by saying, the chain of command is the most basic and important organizational leadership technique used in the core. It is essential for getting any task done in an organized manner when the efforts of more than one person are required.

They're just saying, hey, if there's two of you, and this is something you hear from day one about the Marine Corps, if there's two Marines in a room, one of them is the senior man. They are on that stuff. Now, I will say this, and I've been saying this for a very long time. It's in the book Extreme Ownership.

Relationships are stronger than the chain of command. So as much as we got to understand and we got to support the chain of command, but we got to remember that relationships are stronger than the chain of command when it comes right down to it. And these things are going to play, you know, when you're watching a race between two real close competitors, and one will pull ahead a little bit, and then the other one will pull ahead a little bit,

and then the other one, they're kind of going back and forth. That this, most of the time, 99% of the time, if you're doing things right, the relationship should be out front. And occasionally, a rare occasion. And occasionally,

that chain of command has to come out front. But if you're, the better you're doing as a leader, the less that's going to happen. I mean, I, I just have not. pulled rank on people you know what I mean I I we you know we talk about like working with Leif for I don't know how long long time 20 20 something years

JP for 20 something years you know Dave for 20 something years working with these guys the amount of times that I was like hey no actually I'm the boss is what we're doing that the amount of times that is zero even with your dumb ass literally my son we're working out and he was like he's like you have the best job in the world. I was like, I was like, okay. Why do you think that? Because it was a long story that brought him to, he was, he was working out and he's thinking of cool sayings, you know, he's nine by the way. That's awesome. And he was like, hey, we should make a shirt of that. I was like, oh yeah, maybe we could do that. So we're just going over. What was the saying? I'm in support.

Yeah, yeah. He had two of them. One, his pain is just a feeling. Okay. Okay. And then the other one was it's supposed to be her. Check. So I'm like, okay. Okay. Cairo coming up. up with the real deal yeah so he's fired up and he's and then so he's all happy and stuff can we do two birds with one stone and put like one on the front one on the back yeah maybe well yeah we'll workshop it but you see a nine-year-old kid with a with a t-shirt that says pain is just a feely props right you know what I'm saying yeah you're right props so he's like um it was like hey you have the best job in the world I was like I was like okay why he's like because you can just make a shirt he's like you don't have a boss like you know it's not like you have to see jocko we have to make

this shirt, you just can make the shirt. And then I was like, oh, yeah. And, you know, maybe I'll give Jocka's shirt if he's, you know, if he's lucky. He's like, yeah, it's like, yeah, that's the best. And I'm thinking, and which is exactly what you're saying, you know, like, you don't, like, what are you going to pull rank? You know, it's like, but when you kind of think about that part of it and which, of course, it did make me think like, oh, yeah, where, yeah, like this, it's not just like

that at any given moment and that's it. It's because of like this past of course, you know, behavior like dynamic. Its relationships are stronger than the Chan of Command. Right. It's funny because at Eshalon front, I, because you got to have examples when you're talking to people. And there's so few examples of me being like, all right, I'll stop. This is what we're doing. And we have to go to the first muster when we're at the muster and I walked into the set

up in the morning and everything's all set up. Like it's six o'clock in the morning. doors open at seven or something like that and I say I look in there and the lighting is blue and the doors are opening pretty soon you know in like an hour yeah and I look at it and it looks this is not what I had in mind and I look at Jamie and I go hey make all these lights red and she was like cool got it you know it's one of that's that's that's how far and deep I got to go to go like oh this is a time where I made a call another time was JP and Laif had come up with some other PT plan for the muster. We hadn't really rehearsed it. And I came out. I was like, all, what are we doing?

And they started briefing me the plan. And there's now 700 people on their way, 12 in whatever, in a half an hour that are going to be here. 700 people. You cannot be not squared away with a PT program with 700 people. It's got to be simple, clear, concise. It's got to be straightforward. There's no room for confusion. And we're at a leadership event. And Ashlawn Front is putting on a leadership event and we are in charge of the PT. So if the PT is not squared away, I mean, that's just not a good look at all. So we're sitting there. They start briefing me a little bit and 40 seconds into the brief, I say, we're doing,

we're doing what we normally do. Boom. And they were, they said, Roger. I think JP might have said like, no, it'll. And I was like, nope. I looked at my watch. I was like, nope, not doing it. Yeah.

And they were like Roger. And I said, you know, afterwards, because we didn't have time. You know, we had to do, because what we do is we do the PT first and then did people show up? So we only have an half an hour to get it done. And I said, hey, if we want to try this, we got to run through it when we have time to run through it and square it away and hone it and make it good. But we can't just, you know, out of the hip pocket, just throw a new PT with 700 people that are coming over here. Try it out. Yeah, that's not a good time to try it out.

So there are times where you have to do that. Now I'll tell you there's other times where, you know, JP's like, hey, I got to do this now or we need to do this. And it's like, yep, cool, got you. So it goes in both directions. There's times where Jamie's been like, do this right now. And I'm like, got it. You know, that's the way it works.

It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. So, you know, normally the relationships are in the lead. Occasionally the chain of command will come into play. But even like I said, you know, most of the time, even then it's, Like I said, if Jamie's telling me what to do or Laf's telling me what to do or JPM's telling me what to do or Dave's telling me what to do, hey, we need this right now. Like, cool, got it. Yeah. Because the mission, what takes priority is the mission.

You know, the mission that we're trying to achieve, everyone's trying to achieve the mission. This is what we're doing. Cool, God. Yeah, and I'll actually do you one better as far as like the relationship is that one. And I've heard that story before the one about the blue lights and switch it to the red. That actually, to me, doesn't count as pulling rank because you, like, it wasn't like, it wasn't like, Jamie was like, no, no, no, no, no, like blue is better. Oh, yeah.

And you were like, well, no, I think red is better. It's like, well, you know, don't forget I'm your boss. You know, it wasn't that. That's true. You know, it was like, hey, it was red. Jamie was like, well, obviously he sees something, you know, that I don't or whatever the thought process. It was, to me, that wasn't, was not pulling rank. JP's one, maybe if JP thought that his way was like, no, no, no, this is the way.

And then, you know, not that he would contend your way or nothing like this, but more like, you know, that little bit might be. And everybody, like all those people that you just mentioned, you, JP, Jamie, they know if I say something like that, there's a reason why I'm saying it. I'm not just like, hey, this is what we're doing. And I haven't thought through it. There's no reason behind it. They know there's something going on. I'm the boss. So they're, yeah, like, actually pulling rank.

What that means? I don't think I've even come close to witnessing that. Yeah. Even like with other people or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And it, you're right about it being that kind of level of like, true. trust where it's like, oh, he sees something that I don't.

Or like, you know, and a lot of times a lot of us, we're just trying to do like the best we can kind of a thing. Like I want and we and I think most of us, I think all of us really, we want the, we want just the best for the group what we're doing. You know, we don't want the like to be the guy who did it first and then, you know, whatever I think it's like, but then even that comes from like just from the beginning. That's how we're all interacting. Yeah.

So I'm saying? It wasn't like, I don't know, like someone would have to be the front runner, you know, and now would get them ahead, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And as you do grow an organization, the reason that the chain of command is so important is because what the chain of command allows you to do is communicate up and down the chain of command, up and down the chain of command.

Everyone thinks about communicating down the chain of command. People don't think as much about communicating up the chain of command and how important that is. But that's, to me, that's what, from that perspective, that's why the chain of command is so important. You can't just abandon it because people got to be able to pass the word effectively up and down the chain of command. And really, everyone says up and down the chain of command.

It's really down and up the chain of command. So going back to the book here, a simple and direct chain of command helps to send orders from the highest to the lowest levels in a minimum of time with the least chance of misinterpretation. The chain of command must be opened the other way as well so that the commander can receive official communications and informal feedback from subordinates.

There you go. That's what I just said. That is the part of the chain of command that really matters. Actually, they both matter, but it's the one that gets ignored more often. Fast forward a little. A ground combat force fights in small units and depends on the initiative of junior leaders, the toughness of individual Marines, and the chain of command. The bottom links of the chain in particular.

Forging a strong, reliable chain in peacetime Marine Corps with a high rate of personal turbulence remains a challenge. So when it's peacetime and you get, you know, personal turbulence, it can be hard. It's got some guidelines to help you with that. Spend a lot of time explaining standards and clarifying goals, priorities, and policies. The chain of command can't grow strong amid confusion. By the time the arguments are finished regarding what should be done and by whom there's no energy left to get the job done. Man, it's weird how much the rumor mill Takes hold of things and if you don't let people know what's happening. They're gonna They're gonna fill in the blanks and the blanks that they've the words that they used to fill in the blanks with are not gonna be good

Yeah. Yeah, everyone likes that negativity. Yeah, that's just the way it is that is and and the chain of command the next echelon of chain of command is always stupid They always don't know what's going on it Specify who works for whom again important, but you know again going back to the military examples you know when I when I when I was working for General McFarland, Colonel McFarland at the time. You know, he never gave me any orders. I never, you know, had to push back against what he was saying because he was like, no, you're gonna, like, no, it was a relationship and all these different battalion commanders

that we work with. There was no, because the interesting thing is, and we heard about this from Ben Milligan in his book by Water Beneath the Walls, there's been a lot of time. in the past where conventional units, conventional commanders had control over special operations, and it didn't work out well. And so special operations can be horrified of that. Like, oh, if you get put in charge of these Rangers, you're going to send them in to do a infantry assault on this thing,

and that's not the job that they're trying, all that kind of thing, right? So people are paranoid about it. And it just was no factor for us in Ramadi, no factor at all. And the reason is because we had just good relationships. And the chain of command was, was a distant second. You know I mean it was a very distant second wait when you say it in in in in Ramadi so was it that like you guys understood both your guys unique positions so well because of the relationship whatever so they knew not to send you into certain situations because you you guys would communicate all this stuff and it was totally just understood totally it was you know if general McFarland said hey I need you to do this and I looked at him and said oh that's that's

not a good that's not a good use of us right now right go oh okay well do you have any the recommendations. I'd say, well, yeah, maybe we could do this. And sometimes I would say, hey, sort of like I can't, we don't have the forces to make this happen. And he'd say, oh, don't worry, I do. I got tanks. I got, you know, a company or what, so very cooperative, very open-minded and just, just awesome. Yeah, it's, that's funny because in football, a good quarterback will do that same stuff. Like he'll be, he won't be like, hey, you got a XYZ. He'll be like, hey, what are you seeing over there? So, you know, it's like, it's a real back and forth, you know, So it's like, oh, if he's like.

So you can be like, heck and I can out run this guy. Yeah, exactly right. Or like, bro, this guy is fast. So it's like, hey, let's, you know, let's keep that in mind. Because, you know, a lot of times quarterback have, it's not just one play and one. It's like throughout the play, you have different options, you know? So it's like a good quarterback is going to know all those options. And then, you know, you know, when you say, when you consider a quarterback good at reading defense.

So it's like, oh, he can read. But, okay, our initial plan is here. And here's the secondary and the tertiary. A good quarterback will be like, against these guys, that first plan is very unlikely. So he'll keep that in mind. You mean in the moment? Yeah, like when the play starts.

You know, like let's say they have a court like a DB who's like super fast or their freaking MVP or something like this. And it's like, you know, he makes those adjustments. And a lot of times and even, you know, even if you don't have that particular situation, he knows because he's constantly communicating with the line. So you are coming back in the huddle time saying sometimes saying like, oh, hey, I can ice this dude.

I got it. Exactly right. Or sometimes you be like, bro, I did, I'll do my best to drag him out of the play. Exactly right. And it won't even be that specific. It'll be more like the quarterback saying like, hey, what are you seeing out there? Like, oh, is he, if a guy's crowding you and he's really good at crowding you and certain receivers, like, they don't do good with that kind of crowding. If he's mumping you off the line or whatever, it's like, you'll communicate that.

He'll be like, well, what the hell's wrong? You know, practice more. It's not that. You know, he's saying. He'll be like, okay, that's our strength. That's our weakness. I was about to say everyone is identified. the strength and weaknesses and the capabilities

and it's nothing like there's nothing wrong when when task unit bruiser's like hey I don't know if that's a great mission for us general like farland would be like well what why can't you do it right no it's like well hey we don't have this type of weapon system or we don't have this type of we don't have this type of we don't have enough people or I don't have enough people to send out for that amount of time or whatever the case may be he's like okay cool got it what can you do I we can do this though okay let's do that so yeah um check next explain that there is only one chain of command and it is responsible for everything.

I said something at an event the other day. I don't know if I said it before. I think I have said it before, but I haven't said it for a while. Extreme ownership is not a get out of jail free card. You know, like, oh, hey, this was my fault. Oh, okay, great. Now you can carry on.

No, no, no. And the weird thing is you can get fired. If you make a grievous mistake, that was your fault and you take ownership, there's a decent chance that your boss, looks and you says okay you're fired now or I'm demoting you or I'm moving you off the project that can happen yeah that's why we have to have preemptive ownership we have to be looking at it like hey if something goes wrong I'm the one that's gonna pay for it so I need to make sure that stuff is done right but sometimes people

think well you know what if I take ownership and they still move me out of that position yeah that can happen yeah that can happen in the book extreme ownership when I was like hey this is my fault there was a chance my boss would have said okay yeah you're fired yeah yeah that could have happened and he would have been well within his means to be able to do that. Hey, you know, you're fired. I don't trust you anymore. Luckily, I had a good relationship prior to.

I was taking ownership, which indicates that, hey, when someone's taking ownership and they're not blaming other people, there's a much better chance that it's not going to happen again. Yeah, that happened to me.

And I think I told you this before back when I was a bouncer, I got caught up in one of those, you know, what we call secret shoppers, you know, these people that come in and everything. So it took money, blah, blah, blah. I took money at the front door to let people cut.

The line. Moral breakdown. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't really morally wrong. It was $20. How much you take? I forget. I mean, I'm assuming it was 20.

I don't even remember the incident, even though I remember doing that from time to time. You used to go to a bar in downtown San Diego when I was a young guy. And I would walk right to the front and I had this little relationship with a bouncer and I'd shake his hand and have a 20 in there. As if a 20 was just big time. Bro, trust me. Now, this was in the 90s.

Yeah. Keep in mind like 20 and a 20 when it's not on the normal schedule of payment is big. It's cool. And then not to mention. what makes it I would say by my estimation doubly as cool is the gesture. See what I'm saying like this guy is like you know I'm right because keep in mind everyone that's coming in has it has an element of risk in there are they going to get drunk and they're going to act up or they're going to have drama with this

person or the staff whatever everyone in a bar in a nightclub they have an element of risk now a guy coming in with that gesture he just kind of got on your good side that means a lot it's huge so so yeah I get caught up in this thing or whatever, and then I get rolled up, right? Me and another guy. There was another barries to go to it, and I would, the first drink I would get, I would pay 20 bucks, and I would just leave it. I'd be like, and then this dude would just feed me all night.

Yeah, let me do whatever I wanted. That makes sense. You know? Yeah, it's kind of one of those things, isn't it? Yep. But man, in the 90s, holding over, I mean, handing over a 20? It was like I was ringing a billion. I was at Elon Muskroll.

Really? Yeah. It's true. Yeah. Ridiculous. But when we all got caught. I took responsibility. This would be for extreme ownership, obviously.

But I did take responsibility. Like, what else I'm going to do? I don't know. It just wasn't, it didn't feel like a good thing to be. For whatever reason. I took full responsibility. Like, I'm sorry, whatever. And then there was this kind of period of maybe a week or two

that they were like, okay, what are we going to do? We're going to fire these guys or whatever. Because it's a fireable offense. Straight up, like fire. So they're like, what are we going to do? You know, blah, blah, blah. And I was just saying like, sorry, I just didn't want to get fired. Like, it was such a fun job to me and like some cool free money, sometimes, you know, like all this stuff.

And I would even talk to the manager. Like, hey, like, privately. You know, not when they were talking to me like privately. I'd be like, I'm so sorry for putting you in this position. Whatever's my fault. He's like, yeah, well, you know, it's a bad position to be in, blah, blah, blah. And I was, like, scared for a few days. Like, oh, like, I'm going to fucking fire me today, you know.

Freaking not happy. Like, you know, 23 years old. I don't know. And finally, the manager. I guess he, like, found out I was scared or whatever. And he, like, pulled me. And he was like, hey, you know, the kind of where he wants to tell you something, but he can't say it, you know?

So he was like, you know, it makes sense for someone in your position to be really worried about your job, you know, and all that stuff. Just understand that you specifically, you don't have to worry about that. Yeah. And then I was like, fire some of the other guys? Yeah. Well, they were going to. But then the other guy, there was one other guy. He'd, like, quit.

He resigned, you know, before they fired him. But, yeah, it was that situation. Yeah, every site from being about, but he was like, hey, no, but he said it was for that reason, though. He's like, your attitude and the way you've handled yourself throughout this situation, like, we don't look at you as a bad person that creates problems. Like you're, you're an asset to this, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, okay, that makes sense. Because it was like way after the fact.

Bro, you could have written extreme ownership all those years ago. Maybe I should have. You know what I'm saying? Check. Hold leaders accountable for. their performance good and bad of their subordinates makes sense of course leaders are going to give credit when it's the good stuff we're going to own it when it's the bad stuff demand that leaders give orders in their own names it's a solid one because if I come down and say well you know

the boss said we have to do this so no no we're not doing that we're not doing that's mine this is what we're doing correct and trained leaders in private reward them in public check give awards for small group successes and publicize both the groups and their leaders. Really good. That's good. Fire team leader. Hey, who's the fire team leader? Fire team that set up that flank over there.

Hey, good job, Fred. Way to work. You know, that's what we're doing. So there's this little technique that it looks super dope. But I feel like, and tell me what you think about this, is this kind of defeating the purpose? And that's the one of criticizing public or sorry, the other one, the criticize in private. Yeah, right? Critique. Okay, so there's this, an example of it is on the movie called A Few Good Men,

where he was like, you know, Jessup or whatever, right? The main Marine guy, colonel. And then his, one of his subordinates, this guy was like, he disagreed with him, like in front of some other people. He was like, I think that's a bad idea. And he was like, he didn't like yell at him or nothing. He was like, oh, you know, just totally played it off. He just like, oh, you know what? I think I will have that word with you in private you know and he's like all right but you could tell it was like oh you know a little something other people couldn't tell and then when everyone left whatever they had the word in private then he got freaking scolded or whatever but okay so here's my question so you know how how he said that right where it's kind of like um like everyone in that public setting kind of knows

like oh he might get scolded right now you know like i don't know consider you in a alternate universe where you were talking to, I don't know, freaking JP or something like this. And JP said something maybe that you thought was out of line. And then like in a meeting, like let's say a group meeting. And you told everyone, can you guys excuse us? I got to talk to JP real quick.

You know how you know JP's about to get scolded. You see what I'm saying? But you still technically didn't do it in public. You know, so that's the same thing, right? Yeah. That's the same thing, right? Yeah, yeah.

Well, it's a really, that's a situation where, you cannot be defensive. You can't get defensive about your ideas and you don't want people to not ask you questions and disagree with you. That's just wrong. It's bad leadership. So if someone's like, hey, I don't like this idea,

she'd be like, hey, okay, let me know what, what don't you like about it? Now, listen, there can be somebody that can get, you know, a hair in their ass about some, like particular thing. You know, like, okay, you know what? Let's talk about this offline. Right, right.

Because, you know, if you and I are in a meeting, and I'm like, hey, once we get the lights set up for the video shoot and you're like, hey, we should, we should put the lights over here. And I'm like, yeah, we can put them over there. And you're like, no, no, no, like over here. And I go, yeah, yeah, that's, you know, well, let's take a look in what they look like once they're set up. You're like, well, I already did their thing. And I go, hey, you know what?

Let's just, let's talk about it offline because we got everyone here. Right, right. That's understandable. Yeah, that makes sense. But most of the time, it's, you know, when someone asks a question, if you're getting defensive, it actually doesn't look good.

I mean, like all the other subordinates go, oh, okay, so we're not allowed to ask questions now. And by the way, a few of those people are agreeing with that person that asked them a question. They're like, you know, good question. I wasn't asking it, but a good question, right? So, yeah, definitely, you want to have an environment where people are asking you questions

and when they ask you a question, you give them a good, solid answer. Keep small groups and their leaders together in every possible situation. This is a good one. And this is something that when you're going, when you're in a SEAL task unit or SEAL platoon, you've got fire teams.

And there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, a pull to break up the fire team sometimes. Because, you know, well, we want to put more machine gunners over in this position. So we're going to switch these guys out. And we also want a corpsman on this group. So we're going to switch those guys out. And you end up scrambling up your fire teams. Now listen, fire teams are going to get scrambled up in a gun fight. Like, they're going to get scrambled up.

And that's why you got to train so that they can be scrambled up. But if you don't have to scramble them up, don't. Anytime you can keep that fire team intact, man. It's going to be so much easier. And this is something I learned from the Nam guys. And it was like, oh, well, there's two reasons. If you have a base and an assault element, so the base element's going to put down the cover fire on target,

and then the assault element's going to go through it. And we would get these young, new guy, seal officers and chiefs that would be like, well, you know, we're going to put more. more of the machine guns up in the base. And so now all of a sudden you broke fire team integrity. So that's not good. And then they'd say, and then the Vietnam guys would say,

hey, not only do you mess up your fire teams, but now what happens if the assault team gets compromised and they have no machine guns? It's such an obvious thing, but we like to, we think like, oh, whoa, we like to overplan. Like, hey, well, we're gonna put more machine guns up here and put a rocket team up there. And it's like, you scramble up all the fire teams.

No one's used to working with that person. And you have an element, that can defend itself well in a big gunfight. It's not a good move. So those are the kind of things keep that fire team integrity. And listen, in training, you have to scramble them up. Just like at work, there's times where you want to cross-pollinate people and take a guy from this team.

Of course, of course. But when you have like, oh, we got an emergency scenario, hey, we got to go to, we got to go pitch to a client tomorrow. Don't put it together an ad hoc team right there and put the people that have been working together. So that's what we're doing, keeping those fire teams together. as much as we can. Next section is called developing individual Marines.

The foundation of your company's performance is the performance of your individual Marines. Your objective is to develop individual Marines who are confident that they can fight and win in combat. When properly developed, your Marines should have confidence in their own ability, confidence in the ability of the other Marines

in the fire team crew squad, confidence in their weapons and equipment and confidence in their leadership. Confidence in the company's leadership, particularly in you as their commander will depend upon how well you meet their expectations. Your Marines expect the following from their leader. Get out your notebook. That he knows his job.

That he knows a great deal about the jobs of his Marines. That he keeps them informed about what is going on and what is going to happen in the future. That he is well organized and keeps the efforts of the company organized. That he knows his Marines and takes care of their needs. that he shares all the risks and hardship with his Marines and that he rewards his excellent Marines and takes action to discipline or eliminate his problem Marines. So there's a nice little list to keep in mind.

Know your job. Know your team's jobs. Keep them informed. Not only about what's happening right now, but what's happening in the future. We had a question yesterday about, I was on the Academy, the Extreme Ownership Academy Online,

and a guy was saying he's in a situation, where his company is downsizing a little bit. He's got a go-getter. The go-getter's kind of asking like, what are my opportunities here? And they're really, at this particular moment in time, not great future opportunities. What should I tell this guy?

And I was like, tell him the truth. Hey, this is what's going on. Here's where we're at. This is where we are. This is where you are. Here's, there's a little bit of a, there's a bottleneck right now. You're not gonna have any opportunities

for at least this amount of time. Now I can give you more experience. I can give you more leadership. There's another department. We might be able to help you out over there. But here's what we're up for what we're doing right now. And that's where we have to keep people informed about not just what's going on right now, but the future.

We have to tell them the truth about it. Make sure you're organized. Dude, don't be a, don't show up with your gear all messed up. And by gear, I mean your computer, you know, if you're a business person, your computer's all messed up. You forgot the pointer. You don't have your, you know, whatever. Don't, don't do that.

If you're in the military, obviously, show up with your gear squared away. You know, have a squared away office. Don't look like a disaster and listen and well Einstein was real mess cool that's Einstein you're not Einstein I'm not Einstein right Einstein can get away with that you can't I can't be squared away take care of your Marines all that stuff that's great little great little uh excerpt of what what your Marines or your people Marines are not your people this is what they need from you as a leader Next, you build the skills of your Marines through training. You are responsible for identifying the many individual and collective tasks that they must perform in combat and for developing a plan to train them and evaluate them for the minimum standard, period.

So what's cool about this is roles and responsibilities. You know, we are, I was going to ask you, was there a clearly stated rule or rule when you were a bouncer that you were not allowed to take money at the door to let someone cut? No I don't know Yeah Because that does change the game You know And a lot of times people just assume

Well no Obviously that's obviously you can't do that But also obviously people are doing it all the time Yeah I know I did it a lot Not as a bouncer but as a What a consumer An attendee A patron

Right So if you're not Clear about what the rules are You can't If you're not clear about the expectations, you can't hold people to those expectations. Oh, yeah. It was a rule,

but yeah, that makes sense to me completely. Oh, now you remember it was a rule? Yeah. Okay, well, then you screwed up.

Yep. And there's also rules that, that everyone kind of goes well. Yeah. And if it's that kind of rule, we have to take that into account. We have to take that into account. There's rules that are,

there's a precedent for breaking. And unless you clearly didn't delineate, like, Hey, I know this has been slack in the past. We cannot do this. That's what you need to do. If there's some rule that kind of gets broken sometimes and now all of a sudden we're going to enforce it,

you've got to make it very, very clear. You can't just wait until someone, the one guy that got caught and now we're going to make an example out of him when people have been doing this all the time. It's like, no, no, no, that's not cool. Nope, not cool. You can use that as a moment to say,

hey, listen, next person that this happened to is getting crushed. I know that there's been a precedent to this behavior, it's not happening anymore. Does anyone have any questions about it? Boom. Here's a paragraph. Fast forward a little bit about will.

Which I like the topic. Will is the confidence, commitment, and motivation to accomplish a specific task or activity. To build will, you must build skill. The more your company and your Marines train, the problems will disappear and the stronger their confidence, commitment, and motivation will be. Your Marines want to train and they want to perform their duties well.

Why? Because that is why they join the Marine Corps. They want to train so that they feel ready to fight and to win if they're called to do so. They want to be ready because that is what the American people expect from Marines. So good, hard, realistic training develops skill and builds well. Now in business, what does this look like in business? First of all, when you're in business, you have the best training opportunity for all the people that are in your business with you every day is training everything that you do every task every

project every every every product that you build everything that you do is training it's everything is training so don't get this idea in your head that because in the military there's a training cycle to that everyone gets to have the luxury of being able to train before they go on deployment that's a luxury it doesn't happen well that's not the business world isn't like that well in the business world you don't die if you don't do well you know a presentation and so you can take a little bit more risk I can say hey I go I got to give this presentation to a client today can you cover this

part of the presentation give me a you know to prepare for it tonight it's gonna be a three minute presentation prepare for it tonight you can brief me in the morning if it looks good you can take that it's a two hour presentation can you do these three minutes you're like absolutely you come in the next morning and I'm like oh you prepared you did a good job you talk through it great or you come in the next morning I'm like you know what I'm gonna do it I'm gonna keep those three minutes but next time we're going to rehearse a little bit more and get you ready so that's what we're doing we're just training all the time everything is training and if you don't keep that in

mind um you you always feel like well i don't get the time to train my people you have time to train people so you're that three minute speed or part that's essentially saying like um kind of open up a little opportunity to train somebody the guy next to you where it's like hey that i can basically like break off a small piece of this you know task or whatever just to give them some reps. Yep. Give them some reps. Yeah.

Yeah. That's good to remember too. Because, yeah. I'm kind of training my kids with some stuff. I was about to say you have these opportunities all day long with your kids. Yeah. You know, whether it's, whether it's balancing the checkbook, whether it's, you know, you've got to do some maintenance on the vehicle, whether you got to change out some, some lighting fixture. Like, get your kids engaged in that stuff so that they go, oh, cool.

I know how to do that. Yeah. Next, this is a very interesting section. This is kind of one of the things that made me want to keep going a little bit more with this book. The four, it talks, it's talking about what types of Marines you have. The four general categories of Marines are as follows, able and willing. And this individual has performed the task to standard before, does many other tasks without being told, is not satisfied until an assignment is done right, accepts the need to put in the hours necessary to get the job done right, looks for,

and works out ways to get the job done better. Recent performance has been satisfactory at a minimum. So there you go. That's what we all hope for. That's the top end of the bell curve, right? Able and willing. Next one. Unable and willing.

Okay. So we got like a little bit of a new guy with a good attitude. Has never performed a task standard before. Has had recent enthusiastic performance, particularly on tasks similar to those you want them to do now. Pays close attention to your instructions, watches others doing the same tasks, asks good questions,

spend some time of his own learning and practicing. There you go. That's unable and willing. We can have that person all day. Next one. Able, but unwilling. Has had recent hot and cold performance, sometimes at standard,

sometimes below the standard, has done the task to standard before, but keeps asking for guidance and assistance. Doesn't appear to be concentrating, Work is sporadic and poorly planned. Takes every, and they underlined every, takes every opportunity to be absent from training, lacks confidence in himself and his duties.

So we got that able and unwilling person. And then finally we have the worst case scenario, unable and unwilling, has never performed the task the standard before, has recently had substandard performance, even when he has received a lot of assistance and instruction, works only when closely supervised, seems satisfied with below standard results,

pays little attention to instructions. And so, you know, this is laying out some Marines for you, but obviously in any organization you're going to have these types of people, those four types of people that they break down here. The descriptions of each of the four categories above are only rough indicators. Any Marine may shift from category to category depending on the task, the level of training, the time a day,

the level of leadership and many other factors. The key thing is to remember that each Marine is different and isn't it interesting and you see this with kids is And actually I see this with a echo Charles Okay when someone wants when someone's into something they're they're into it. They're all over it No guidance needed no follow up needed. It's just happening Yeah, but when they're not into it This is like when you know you get the kid that gets a a in history class Yeah, but you know whatever an F in

some other class that they're not because they're into history. Yeah. Right? That's the exact thing that's going down. So remember that's with your kids and that's where you have the opportunity

to teach them about discipline, right? Because look, it's easy to do stuff that we want to do. Yeah. It's easy to do stuff that we want to do. But it's the stuff that we don't want to do that's where you have to crank on the discipline and go do some stuff that you don't want to do right now. Yeah.

And that stuff that you don't want to do. And listen, obviously continue to do to pursue the stuff you want to do. And hopefully you can build a life for yourself where what you do, what you do is what you want to do. That's the goal. In order to get there,

generally speaking, you're going to have to do a lot of stuff along the way that you don't really want to do until you can set things up properly. Yeah, that's so true. And I call them the chores of life. So it's basically the things that are required to do, you know, to do the things that you want to do,

but the parts that you don't want to do. It's like the chores in life. I feel like everyone, Tomorrow I'll find myself in a little pocket of success with influencing the kids to do stuff they don't want to do. If you try to make it fun or you do it with them, or you know, especially when you praise them a lot, like, probably you should be proud of yourself. You did that, you know, kind of a thing. But I think that's a good tactic to make it at least somewhat fun rather than just force it and just tell them how important it is, you know, which I, you know, I understand that part too. But I feel like it's way more seamless and way smoother when you try to make it fun.

a little bit a fun always wins yeah making something fun always wins there's no doubt about that yeah that being said there's some stuff that just ain't fun yeah right and so and and I think maybe the technique is to teach kids how to make it fun right yeah not just say hey you got to clean your room uh I bet I can pick up more clothes than you can faster boom let's go ah blah blah and you can have a little fun race doing it but actually teaching them hey, you know what made that fun? We had fun with it. We turned it into a game.

That's what we're doing. So definitely what we want to do there. Now it breaks these down a little bit. A Marine who is able and willing is a great example for developing Marines. He does the right thing and does not need close supervision. This kind of Marine, you want to groom for higher leadership responsibilities. The willing and able Marine, the willing and unable Marine is the one who usually joins entry level. Like, this is a new guy, basically.

He needs patient instruction and lots of feedback. The able and unwilling Marine is your biggest challenge. His unwillingness may be due to a lack of confidence or he may have a real or perceived personal problem. Possibly the able but unwilling Marine may be trying to get over on you. In either case, if the Marine has a problem or is a shirker, you must insist that he complete the task and do it to standard. The Marine with a problem will have done something worthwhile.

And the shirker will realize that you will not allow him to shirk. There's a great story that Jason Gardner tells about his he was just having like wild Dumb haircuts you know Jason was like long hair or whatever bleach like just crazy and his platoon chief was like dude You should just get your haircut. He's like well, I know you and he's like bro life is so much easier if you have a squared away haircut And he was like hmm and he tried it and sure enough life got that much easier that's kind of Like, freaking Jason Gardner was able but unwilling at that point. And he got turned into able and willing. And then the last one, the unable and unwilling Marine should not be in your company.

While he remains in your company, he must be very closely supervised, make him complete all tasks of standards. He may get a sense of satisfaction from his accomplishment and eventually be salvaged. However, if, however, the time and effort you spend becomes more than the possible return of your investment to your company and the core, if he's a disciplinary problem, he should be separated from the core as soon as possible. Don't pass this Marine to another company

or let him get by. There's no place for that in combat. Which, that's a real simple straightforward. I guarantee you it's not that easy to get away, get rid of, it's not easy to get rid of a seal. It's definitely not going to be easy to get rid of a Marine.

So we got to, we got to make some effort here to get this person on board. And I've talked about some of those techniques, you know, putting someone in charge, elevating them. Look, can you have a complete person that's just a dirt bag? Yeah, you can.

And that person needs to go. But a lot of times they just need some challenge. They don't feel like they're being respected. Because giving someone responsibility is a sign of respect. Yeah. Giving someone responsibility is a sign of trust. Given someone responsibility is a sign that you care about them. So when you elevate people like that, you make the relationship stronger.

and you're more likely to bring them on board. And what happens, what's, unfortunately, it's a little bit of a downward spiral. Because what happens is Echo does, he's supposed to do something, he doesn't do it. So I punish you by, you're not going to be in charge of that. I'm putting, you know, Fred's in charge you now.

And now you're pissed. And now you make less effort. And now when you do less effort, now not only is Fred in charge of you, but Fred's putting you in, you know, taking away more responsibility and putting you in charge of some more menial tasks. And next thing, you know,

you just have a bad attitude. Right out of the game. If I said, hey, it looked like you, you know, why didn't you put forth the effort you need to get that done? Whoa, blah, blah. And I say, I'll tell you what, I think you're capable of more.

I actually want you to do it again and I'm actually going to give you this additional responsibility as well. Most cases, most cases, people step up their game. Now, some of the advice that they give on dealing with these type of people, able and willing persons, pretty straightforward, you know,

supervise them easy, let him work, give them your trust. tell him what you want done. Don't waste time telling him how he already knows. Tell him when to get started and when to be finished. That's it. You know, always tell this kind of Marine how you,

well he met your standards, challenge him with a little more responsibility each time. That's all good. I agree with that. The unable but willing, obviously you're going to provide more instruction, encourage him to ask questions, show him the right standard,

demonstrate it, let him see what it looks like, supervise him closely, check him frequently, help him correct his mistakes, give him time. reward him heavy discipline easy reward heavy discipline easy able but unwilling determine why the marina's unwilling probably one of two reasons lack of confidence or a personal problem i would be willing

to bet well i would say there's a lot there's other issues here right if you know we've we've talked about the primal order chain of command yeah if i don't respect you we got a problem and now you're telling me what to do all of a sudden it's a big problem that's true by the way if If I don't respect the mission, meaning like you're telling me to do something stupid, I got a problem. Yeah, fully. And so you really, you gotta keep those things in mind too.

And some of the things that they talk about here, developing confidence, get him to tell you how you would do the task, encouraging him and getting him started, handling him as able and willing, it's not a bad idea. Handle the guy like he's good to go. That's, I like that concept. Determine whether he has, personal problems. Yeah, obviously arrange for him to talk about you later. Give him a specific time.

Help him solve his problem. Tell them what you want to, what you want done, when to start and when to finish. Spell out clearly what the standards are. Spell out clearly what the reward or punishment will be. Supervise them closely. Check it at tech task completion against standard. Always follow through this kind of reward or punishment as you as you promised. So that's that's all good. I would venture to say what I talked about as far as elevating the way you're treating them is going to be a better outcome. The more you micromanage, now listen, if the person has a personal problem,

obviously that doesn't apply or the person, but when they have a bad attitude, what's the root of the bad attitude? He thinks what we're doing is stupid, or he thinks you're stupid. You can get mad at that, but you know what? Getting mad at is stupid.

You're being stupid. You're fulfilling his prophecy by being mad and taking it out on him. You're actually acting the way he thinks you're going to act. So when you act in an elevated way, In an enlightened way, and you go, hey, Fred, you know, I notice that you don't really seem like to do this job. It seems a little beneath you.

I'll tell you what, I got a different job for you. Can you help with this over here? Let's elevate this dude. The last one, unable and unwilling. Explain carefully what you want to do and how you want him to do it. You question him to ensure he knows exactly what to do. Spell out the standards clearly. Spell out the reward or punishment clearly.

Supervise him heavily. This Marine will need frequent correction or often quit working if he thinks he's not being watched. Check tasks completes against standards, follow through with promised reward or punishment. If repeated efforts to help this Marine to become able or willing have failed, initiate action for unsuitability discharge. Marines in this category require detailed instruction and concert supervision, absorb enormous amount of leadership, time, and effort, and are of little benefit to your company preparing for combat. I get it.

In my opinion, there's less people like this in the world than we think. and you know in any you know when you hire someone in a company and look are you going to get slugs of course you are you going to get uh what is that name for someone that's uh shirker they call it a shirker skater we call it like someone that's just trying to skate you're going to get people like that but generally speaking you know people want to like you said they want to do a good job most of the time so just keep that in mind and remember leadership is a tool that you can use and the more you the more you treat people with respect the more you elevate you your treatment of them, generally speaking, the more they will elevate themselves. Not everybody. You get some freaking animals out there. They're just going to try and take advantage of it. I get it.

But that's not common. It's less common. There's a whole section in here about, you know, bringing people on board and having a unit sponsorship and orientating people and making sure that they're getting taken care of and making sure that the orientation includes

the company values and the standards and the missions and the goals and all this kind of stuff. So good. Good, make sure when someone comes on board, you take time to orient them properly. I think that's pretty obvious. Make sure they understand what the values are. Make sure they understand what the standards are.

Make sure they understand what the mission, the goal. What the standard operating procedures are. What the history is. Getting that culture embedded and let them know what's going on in the future. But it's shocking how many people get hired and actually don't get any of that information that will set them up for success and set the company up for success.

So do good orientation with your people. Fast forward. Developing leaders. Developing leaders, whether we are talking about a new leader or maturing the ones who have already had some experience means training leaders. The best strategy for developing leaders is the same one that we discuss for developing individual Marines. Assess each leader's leadership skills.

See how he stands on the able and willing scale. Just because he has stripes or rockers doesn't automatically mean that he is. He has the skills or is motivated. Facts. Just as with individual skills, the development of individual leadership skills goes on all the time. Often it won't appear on the training schedule. As a company commander, you must have a plan for developing your leaders. So that's what I was just talking about, especially leadership, especially leadership is always,

leadership training is always happening. It's always happening. And any time that you are stepping in and taking the leadership role, yourself you're just remember you're taking that role from somebody else so as much as you can let other people on your team lead let them lead during peacetime permit freedom freedom of action meaning like you want to give them a little bit of leeway like I'll give you some leeway echo of while we're not in front of a client but once we're in front of a client be a little bit tightened up honest errors must be

expected and corrected of course do not tolerate indifference or abusive authority meaning you put someone in charge of something, they start yelling and screaming, they start treating people without respect. It's a problem. You can't stand for that kind of thing. Issue mission type orders rather than detailed orders. Tell the NCO what to do and let him do it.

Let him decide how to best accomplish the task. Support the leader in his decisions. If a decision is based upon poor judgment or false information and you are going and you are able to give him guidance before any action is taken, Can do so but once he starts out to do something with a group of men do not halt the operation unless serious Or injurious result appear imminent so they're like let people do their thing Man, this is hard to do sometimes and you know in the business world that means we're not gonna let someone Blow a big deal or wreck some construction site by doing a bad concrete pour like we're not letting that happen

But if they're gonna oh it's gonna take an extra 20 minutes to get this done cool Get it. We'll talk to him afterwards. We'll see what they learn from it. Counsel the leader privately concerning his mistakes after the job is finished. You already talked about that. Compliment or praise the leader who does the assignment well. The officer must correct errors, but fundamentally he must be builder upper.

Make sharp distinction, however, between backing up a subordinate leader and granting him undue liberties. this support is to increase operating efficiency, never permit abuse of authority or disregard for directives. Straight up. Adhere to the chain of command. Do not officially deal with individual Marines as a regular practice. Talk to them and listen to them, but hold the leader responsible for his Marines and

issue your instructions through him. And it says as a regular practice, because there are certainly times where you want to put the word out to everybody yourself as the senior leader. As often as you can, you go through your own. use subordinates. Assign the leader responsibility for the state of discipline with his squad section or platoon. Let the junior leader take charge whenever appropriate. That's what I just said. You've got to let those subordinate leaders lead. Let them lead. Permit the squad leader to train his squad and the section chief to train his section. Use the platoon sergeant to train the

platoon. So as much as we're training our subordinates, we want to empower them to train their subordinates. That's what we're looking to do. That's how we're building that strong team. Develop it develop the following guides for NCO stature in your company. So NCO, this is a non-commissioned officer. This is like your front line leaders and they're going to be about to use the word NCO a bunch. So think front line leaders when you hear this. Do not promote undeserving men to NCO grade just to fill a promotion quota. Keep the NCO core elite. That's Legit. Grant NCOs a greater voice in matters relative to marine welfare.

So you want to listen to the troops on the front line and the leaders on the front line. Let the men know that the NCO's advice and counsel is used by the commander in arriving at decisions. There's nothing better than saying, oh, yeah, hey, JP thought of this is what we're doing. That's nothing better than that. That's what we want to do. Obtain recommendations from the NCOs concerning enlisted Marines within their units to be considered for promotion.

Demand NCO commitment to raise their own professional competence. You gotta hold that standard. Keep them informed, obviously. Show approval of jobs undertaken without suggestion. We want them to go out and get after it. So when someone goes out and gets after it and shows initiative, let everybody know. That's what we're looking for.

That's what we want. Quickly compliment the NCO on a job well done. Do not cheap in praise by extending it when it is not deserved, but do not withhold it from the man who has earned it. Place a high value on dependability. Hell yeah. Actively sell the NCOs to the men by holding them in obvious high regard.

Case and point. That's why it's, hey, guys, JP came up with a plan. Here's what we're doing. Like that kind of thing right there is so important to building the crew. Next section. Building teamwork. What wins in combat is the skill and will

of individual Marines molded into a cohesion. cohesive spirited team with combat and weapon systems becoming more and more complex teamwork has become the deciding factor on the battlefield this is why you the company commander should build skill will and teamwork in your company teamwork is essentially the business of putting things together this putting things together is the responsibility of leaders in your company it is that idea they have they have the words putting things together in quotes Because really, that's what the leader's doing. Putting all these different pieces together.

Whether it's at a business where we have a production arm, we have an operations arm, we have a logistics arm, we got a sales arm, we got a marketing arm, we got a media arm, all those things are going on. How do we put all those things together? Combat, same thing. You've got your clearance team. You got your external cord cordon team.

You got your mobility team. You got your search team. Like all these different teams, you've got to put them together. So that's what we're doing as leaders. And the team has to work together. And you shouldn't have to be... You ever watch a compose or a...

When a classical music... Who's that guy? Conductor. But then you see someone that, like, paid $10,000 to be the conductor for a little while. And they just go up there and it doesn't really matter what they do. And the orchestra still pulls it off. You never seen that before?

I don't know. So, like, basically, it's saying that the conductor... He's not really... Like the maestro Like the conductor of the orchestra They're all reading sheet music Now he's given the signals I'm sure there's something

I'm sure I'm gonna catch hell for this And people are gonna tell me how important it is But I've seen videos Where like the conductor just like is a kid And the band still or the orchestra still kicks ass right And I'm sure there's put little accents on stuff And kind of like little tiny micro adjustments

But the band is gonna do what it's gonna do So that's what I think a leader should be doing I'm actually giving props to the conductor Okay. Because the conductor shouldn't be like, it's not like, you're not going to blow your trumpet until I point at you and tell you to,

no, the guy's going to blow it. Now you could maybe give them a little thing like, like, like a little, give it a little bit of sauce right now. You know, maybe give them that look. Yeah.

But that dude's blowing the trumpet. Right. Right. So I have my breach team. They're going over the wall. They're blowing the wall. Yeah. Now I might have to be like,

you know, all right now, like just a little micro adjustments. That's what we should be trying to do. That's what the idea to me of like, of putting things together is more of a conductor because the team should be executing

kind of on their own. Right. By their own. By their own. Yeah. Yeah, actually that analogy kind of is starting to really make sense, the conductor,

because I've wanted, you know, when you first kind of see the conductor, you're like, oh, like, what's he doing? You know, everyone knows how to play their music. I'm sure they've rehearsed that actually, you know, so it's like, what are we even doing? Then you're like, oh, wait a second. He's kind of keeping the train on the tracks,

even though there's tracks. So, you know, some conduct, I don't know, I look at them on the internet or whatever, but some of them go just hard. Yeah, yeah, like getting nuts. You know, and then some of them are pretty mellow or whatever. But it kind of seems like, and I don't know, I'm not a conductor, you know this about me,

and I don't play in an orchestra, you know that about me as well. But it seems like, completely unqualified opinion. Observational standpoint. All good. It seems like it would work like, okay, you got your what, your woodwinds and you got your brass and you get your percussion. Where he'll, like his energy can kind of flow to the different, you know, so the conductor's style will be reflected a little bit in the performance. You see what I'm saying?

But at the same time, everyone leads as well. It's like the same thing. It's like decentralized command where, you know, when the percussion kicks in, they're, you know, their, you know, their. specific attitude and their specific like feeling given like the piece that they're performing is going to dictate how hard they go at that particular moment you see what I'm saying so it's like a it's like a collective reflection of everybody including the conductor by the way so he's over here you know he's hitting the brass he's hitting the freaking woodwinds all this stuff with his personal style woodwinds hell yeah I don't know woodwinds maybe but the um you see what I'm saying though so it's like

it is a collective creative endeavor yeah you know saying so like a different conductor might and it might be subtle it might be not so subtle but a different conductor might have a different like expression with the same orchestra you see what I'm saying yeah but it's fun that's interesting because it's like I mean in my opinion it's interesting because the conductor yeah he's the leader but meanwhile everyone else is kind of leading their own for sure little part of the mission as well that's what I'm saying it all just fits together and he might be able to give a little bit more stank on the section or pick it up or whatever but I mean he's not even really keeping time.

You know, he's not even really keeping time, I don't think. Maybe when the whole thing comes like to a stop and then he can hit it. Right. But even that, like they know what they're doing. Yeah, exactly right. And if he was to not do that, they would probably just kick in pretty close. Right. That's what it feels like. And then yeah, that would be like a little hypothetical example of like a conduct, I don't know, the conductors out there probably like, right?

Yeah, these guys are like we're like idiots. Or they're like, they're like, they're like, you're spot on with this stuff. I don't know. But it kind of feels like a conductor, you know, the what do you call? The crescendo right where you do. And then boom, like some conductors,

they might like drag it out just for a split second more just for that extra. And even on an assault, let's say we're assaulting a building. Like once you say, once the assault starts, like as the ground force commander who's the conductor there, like you could stop it, but it would take you. You can just like, you know,

flick your wand or whatever they have the conductor has and like it immediately stops. No, just like if you were a conductor, you wouldn't be able to just end the song when you want. Like it would be too shocking. People would be like, no, no, we wouldn't rehearse that. Now you could, you know, you can get, you can probably make it happen as a conductor. As an assault, as a ground force commander, you can certainly like, you can put an end to the. And we put pro words in place that way. If we have to stop it, we can pass a pro word and it'll happen.

But yeah, that's what we're doing. We're putting things together. Yeah, that's cool. As the leader of the team, your challenges to coordinate and control the actions of your platoon so that all the actions or platoons so that all the actions of your company fit together. You must on a daily basis do things and say things that will convince each team member that the other team members and the team as a whole depend on him to get the work done. You also must do and say things daily to convince individual Marines that their wants, needs, hopes, and goals are tied to the team's performance and success. This is something I talked about in leadership strategy and tactics. Making sure that people understand that when the team wins, the individuals win.

When the team wins, the individuals win. If the team wins and the individuals lose, we're out of alignment. There's something wrong. It's not correct. When the team wins, the individuals should win as well. That should be in business. It could be in the Marine Corps. It should be everywhere.

Training as stated, the best way to develop teamwork is through training. Always critique drills. We must discuss team performance and how each team, member contributed or failed to contribute to the team's performance. We should also specify places to where the coordination of individuals and teams worked and didn't work. So again, we're doing training. We're debriefing is what we're doing. That's when they say critique, we're debriefing. Working by teams, do assign tasks by teams rather than by details. Again, this is just going back to the fire team thing. Don't put together some new element to do a task. Let the teams work together as

much as you can't and again in the business world and even in combat you want to do cross-pollinization of people you want to do it to some extent sometimes you want to do it a lot to make sure people can handle it make sure that the standard operating procedures are are solid but man when a team works together they get good they just get good that's what we need to do stress high stress and heavy pressures applied to the team as a whole during training will build teamwork the key is to do it right events exercises and activities that are extreme challenges and that demand an all-out effort by the team and each team member will build teamwork check that's what again when I as I'm training you to give

briefs I'm gonna be like hey you got to give a brief in 15 minutes go get ready and it's like stressful and I bring a bunch of people that that are part of our company in the room to watch you do it and we critique you really hard with trying to create stress and eventually after a month of that You're like not stressful anymore. Easy money, yeah. Reward or punish the team. Whenever you supervise a task or a mission that requires a high degree of teamwork, you should try and gear your supervision, critique,

reward, and punishment to what the team does more than to what the individual Marines do. Do it in a way so that each Marine can clearly see what he wants most depends more on what the team does than what he does. Talk team language. use we, us, an hour instead of I, me, and my, check, build team reputation. This is a good one. Any Marine worth a damn will work hard to live up to his reputation, so will a team. Whenever a team does something that is both unusual and good, and when the members do it

as a team, all the leadership of the unit should know about it. When this happens three or four times, a word will get back to the team. At that point, they'll find out they do have a reputation. to live up to. This is freaking legit. This is where, you know, with your kids, with your family, start setting that, hey, this is who we are, we don't do that kind of thing.

We don't do that. We don't get bad grades. We get A's. We don't quit. We work hard. We keep our mouth shut during practice. We get it done. That's what we're doing.

We're not missing. Like, that's what we do. That's that, and you have that reputation. Once you have that reputation, it's like it becomes your identity. Your identity is what's driving you to do the right things at the right time. And, you know, there's, there would be platoons. It's weird how this psychologically impacts people. There was a platoon one time that was not at Seal Team 3, but it was another team I was at.

And their, their nickname was Good Time Charlie. And like that just had such an impact. Good time. Like who are you going to say? You know what I mean? Like, whatever. The other platoon, Delta Paltoon, or Foxtrop platoon, or Good Time, Charlie. And their reputation, when that's your reputation, how do you behave?

You know, how do you behave? You know, kind of good, looking for the good times. Not the, not the hardcore. So we learned this from Hackworth, right? Your reputation, the brand. You know, the term, I never like that term, brand. building the brand because to me that sounds fake

right right manufacturing yeah it's like a manufacturing I'm gonna say this about my company or I'm gonna say this about my team because I want every I'm building I'm not building a team I'm building a brand like contriving it or something it's contrived it sounds contrived but I was out at Battlefield

a little while ago and I was talking about the brand of some of the Civil War leaders and one of the One of the easiest ones to call out is is Stonewall Jackson. Like, what kind of brand is that? You know what I mean? When you're part of Stonewall Jackson's crew, your whole, your attitude is going to shift.

And same thing with Hackworth. You know, they were the Hard Luck Battalion, changed that to hardcore. That's what we're doing. That's your, your attitude changes. So how are you going to identify yourself? What kind of reputation are you going to build? And there's a real easy, there's a real, defensive mechanism.

I gotta do a podcast about this. Because everyone has different defense mechanisms, right? Defense mechanisms. They have, oh, you know, like Echo Charles's defense mechanism is like, he's kind of chill, right? I'm not going to, you know, it's not really, no big deal, no factor. That's your defense mechanism. You don't, you're not going to dig in on something because you don't have to. You've created a reputation where it's like, oh, that's just what you're going to do.

Seth Stone had the reputation of like, I'm a knucklehead. Right this guy went to Prince and went to the Naval Academy you know brilliant guy But he his his defense mechanism would be like oh no no no actually you do know It took me like it took me like four days Where I was like oh this guy's wicked smart and he's acting you know he that's his defense mechanism I wouldn't even say he's acting it's just a natural defense mechanism would be like uh you know so people have their defense mechanism mechanism and that can very easily become your reputation and And then you've got, you're in a good, it's a bad spot.

But for you, you think you're in a good spot. Because now I have this reputation. And if my reputation is I'm a joker, I don't have to be serious anymore. Right. By the way, super serious can be a reputation too. And that can also be a defense mechanism. Like, oh, hey, you don't say anything to John. Right.

Because he's over here being all. No, that's a defense mechanism too. Everyone's afraid to say anything to the boss. So we all have these little defense mechanisms. But we turn our defense mechanism. Like next level is when it becomes our reputation and that's not saying this is a good thing. Well, it can be a bad thing. It can be a great thing if your reputation is we're going to get shit done. That's the reputation that we have. That's what we want and that's what we're going to try and live up to. So if you can get your platoon, your team, your troop, your people to have a reputation of excellence. You're going to be in a good spot. So keep that in mind. Next section here is called morale. Morale is a state of mind. It is that intangible force that will move a Marine to give his last ounce of effort to achieve something without regard to the cost to himself.

It is the quality which makes Marines endure and be courageous in times of fatigue and danger. Although morale is a complex and intangible quality, it must have a solid basis in leadership discipline and comradeship. Morale is based on leadership. Good morale is impossible without good leaders. They provide Marines with a feeling of confidence, trust, well-being, and accomplishment. Good discipline conquers fear and unites Marines into a cohesive unit. This discipline creates a body strong enough to carry its members through dangers and difficulties which they would be unable to face alone.

In this way, good discipline promotes comradeship, which is the next factor of good morale. Comradeship is vital to high morale because it surrounds. A Marine with a feeling of confidence and strength at the very moments when he's feeling uncertain and weak. This is just a strong team. The state of mind, right? Here's the contributing factors for a Marine, or first for morale. Efficient operations. This is out of the gate.

Because think about it. If you're doing dumb stuff all the time and you're inefficient, that is not good for morale. Good communication clearly Realistic training absolutely Opportunities for promotion yes Good physical condition good physical condition goes hand in hand with good mental condition These two elements are basic to achieving good morale and by the way they're not you know physical fitness Good physical condition isn't given to you got to earn it all the things that build good morale you have to work for them

You can't just you can't buy morale I can't give everyone free t-shirts and be like hey guys this is good morale pickup Nope doesn't mean anything if you got to earn that t-shirt it's a big deal now a sudden we mean something Like at the j-rob wrestling camp the guys kids trying to earn that t-shirt That's what they're trying to do not for free if it was for free didn't care It's not good for morale if it's free Good administration Confidence in their weapons and equipment confidence in leaders.

Men expect their leaders to know their jobs, to share hardships with them and to take personal interest in their problems. The men like to see their leaders where things are going on when the weather is bad or when the night is dark and wet. Comfortable quarters, good chow,

good mail service, good medical attention, post exchange and facilities, leave and liberty, religious services, awards, high standards. Marines like to be in a sharp unit. it. They appreciate the achievement of high standards and discipline, personal appearance, police. It's me cleaning, cleaning things up, maintenance, training, and athletics. The lift and morale that comes from impressive military ceremonies is also an important factor.

It's so strange, isn't it? Even as a special operations guy, when I see the Marine Corps silent drill team, I give a solemn, silent salute to myself. to them because it's squared away there's something you know when we talked about all the different virtues and the universally appreciated virtues

discipline is absolutely one of them here's some indicators of morale saluting appearance good housekeeping pride personal conduct care of equipment unauthorized absences these are bad sign

realistment rates are they good sick call rate how many often are people going to sit call and jp non-judicial punishment how often are people getting in trouble request to transfer how often are so this is we got to keep track of you got to keep track of your morale what's going on with your troops how's that morale looking and then you know speaking of the the lift in morale that comes from discipline there's a section here on Discipline. Discipline is the individual or group attitude that ensures prompt obedience to orders and initiation of appropriate action in the absence of orders. It is an attitude that keeps your Marines doing what they are supposed to do when they are supposed to do it through strong inner conviction. Good discipline is constant and functions whether or not outside pressure or supervision is present is the result of good training and intelligent leadership.

we have to have discipline Indicators of discipline attention to detail And these are good things to remember That your troops are watching you Troops are looking at you Good relations between company members Devotion to duty

Proper senior subordinate relationships Proper conduct on and off duty Adherence to standard Cleanliness, dress, military courtesy Promptus in responding to orders Adherence to the chain of command ability and willingness to perform effectively with literal no supervision. So those are the things we're looking for.

Here's some ways to improve discipline. Set the example be self-disciplined and consistent. That's you as a leader. If you're not holding that line, forget about it. Your word means nothing. I'll say that again. Your word means nothing. Strive for competent, confident leadership throughout your company.

Ensure that principles of leadership are practiced by all leaders. Institute a fair and impartial system of rewards. and punishment. Resort to punitive measures only when necessary to protect the rights of individuals, the government, and the standard of the Marine Corps. That's a good one to remember because a lot of times people think that discipline means we're just punishing everyone. We're not. We're actually trying not to.

When we have to punish people, that is a downcheck in your own leadership book. You know, when I got to take someone to captain's masks where I got to write them up, man, I screwed something up. did I know I did what did I do wrong yeah I've always thought that to some degree I mean obviously I didn't like you know I wasn't like super like ultimately 100% convinced but I always had that feeling that yeah punishment like you can all in I mean at any given moment if you find yourself punishing somebody I feel like there is or there was a better way to handle it no doubt I mean think about When's the last time you had to punish one of your kids?

So this might come off as kind of controversial. I've never punished any of my kids except for one time. And I didn't feel good about it. Yeah. And when you had to punish one one time, looking back, are you like, yeah, there's some mistakes I made. Right in the middle of the punishment. I realize it. And it really, like, it affected me bad.

Like, it was that moment where I was like, it hit me so hard that I was like, this doesn't. Bad dad. Exactly right. Exactly right. And it wasn't even really, it wasn't really that bad. It was just like, you know how you kind of have a moment of clarity?

You know, sometimes? And then the idea behind everything hits you. It's like one of those things. But I've never, I've never punished any of my kids. That I can think of that technically, it's a punishment.

Only because, I mean, I think my kids have pretty good, like just personalities. You know, they're just like, And I've done here Here's the closest thing I've ever done to punish

If I be more serious But it's not that's not punishment is it I just be more serious for better influence And I probably did that probably like five times In my entire life by the way And they'll be like they get super scared For whatever reason I think just because they're not used to it That's all because I'm not very scary let's face it

But yeah no I know only that one time that I can remember And when you punish your kids or you punish your employees or you punish someone in your platoon, you should definitely be feeling, look, look, can someone do some stuff that's totally just off the, off the reservation? Yep, they can.

But most of the time it's like, man, they're doing something that 99% of the time, it's like, oh man, I could, I could have done a better job as a leader. So I will say this. So every once in a while, I will tell my daughter, get off your phone for like an hour or two hours or something like this. And I truly don't regard to the job. it as punishment. Like, hey, you did something wrong and therefore the pain that you have to feel for that is getting off your, it's not that. It's if I feel like, oh, wait a second, like, you know,

let's say I'm talking to, or let's say you're my daughter and I'm like talking to you. And then she's like, she'll be like looking at her phone while I'm talking to her. And it's not that I'm like mad at that because I know how that feels. I'll be looking at my phone sometimes. You know, like it happens sometimes. You know, I don't know what she's doing on that phone. So I can't just make a call. So, but I will think, oh, wait a second. there's a very good possibility that the draw from that phone is more powerful than her attention to me. Exactly right. I'm a benefit of the doubt kind of freaking parent or whatever.

So I'm not going to freaking hold it against her if I don't know the facts, you know. But what I do see is that's what it looks like. So at an attempt to alleviate that issue, it's not punishment. It's like, oh, well, you're distracted by that. I'm, you know, I'm telling you something important that I think it's in the benefit of you. So you're distracted. So then I'll say, hey, we'll take a break from the phone. Therefore, you'll be less distracted.

So I'm saying? But it's never punishment. So even like video games, for example, like my son slash nephew, where we'll say, hey, like I feel like you're distracted by this video game and you're taking your eye off of X, Y, Z that we all agreed, you know, was kind of the goal. So we'll be like, hey, you can't play video games until the weekend just so you can focus on this other stuff. That's just like standard. Exactly right. But some people, it's very subtle. But like my parents, they'll do it for punishment.

You know, like, hey, you acted wrong. Take away the video games as punishment. So I'm saying? The video game didn't make me act wrong. I never did. Super Mario Brothers, brother. You don't act wrong from Super Mario Brothers. But, I mean, you know, act wrong for other reasons.

Probably because of what I was taught or not taught, but whatever. It's not the video games. But taking away the video games is inflicts pain. So hopefully, you know, the dynamics of punishments. It's kind of like, hey, I don't want to feel that pain, therefore I'll comply to this other thing. You know what I'm saying? That's different. Yeah.

Yeah. No. And I mean, I punished my kids through the years for various things, not a ton. And yeah, sometimes, you know, your kid with kids, they need a course correction, right? And but the reason that they need a course correction is because of me. Right. The course. Yeah.

You know, and by the way, if you let something go until they need a big course correction, well, then you made a lot of mistakes instead of little ones. You know, like little, oh, a little bit off course. How can I make a small adjustment? So definitely, you should definitely feel that with your people. I will say this, though. I'm not by no means am I saying like punishing is bad. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying this is straight up, straight up.

And I mean this literally, this is from an ideal standpoint. Like ideally, like for example, one that would come up back when my son slash nephew was a teenager, that's taking out the trash thing, right? You take out the trash after dinner or whatever. And sometimes he'd forget, probably he's 15 years old. You think he's going to prioritize to, just in and of his, you know, his personal interests and, you know, whatever, he's going to prioritize taking out the trash. Yeah, you know, authoritarian person would be like, he better, you know.

But in the real world, bro, 15 year old is. going to be into his girlfriend if he has one, probably communicating with his friends and all this other stuff. Yeah, like other, not trash. Trash is no priority. Trash is not the priority. He'll do it. He don't want to get in trouble.

He'll do it maybe because he finds a sense of like obligation or, you know, whatever. But for him to forget about that sometimes is very realistic. In fact, I don't know if there's a world where my particular son, you know, where it wouldn't be realistic for him to forget about that, right? So what I thought, just even from the beginning, it's not that he needs to be punished. Therefore, now he's scared of punishment and that's motivating him to take out the trash

and now he can go into his adult life being scared of some punishment. That's going to, you know, like it's effective. And from what I understand from this outfit, short term, long term is, hey, if I can as the quote unquote leader parent, you know, whatever of the household or whatever, if we can provide an environment

for success, like the criteria for success of it, which all it looks like is a reminder. Like, bro, if he has to take out trash like every night after dinner, if you can just remind them. Remind them two, three times, you know? And plus with my whole, I think, personality, if I remind my kids to do something,

they'll be like, oh, like, shoot, I had to get reminded of it, you know, kind of a thing. So I know that that would, I mean, I knew at the time that that would be effective. And it was. And I didn't have. have to punch nobody I don't have to scold nobody they'd have to give up with leadership capital with that you know that kind of stuff so I got asked a question the other day like you know it's kind

of a question I've heard some version of before but along the lines of like oh you know I because I got three daughters and one son I can't imagine you know what you'd be doing to some guy that wants to date your daughter yeah how would you treat them and I was like well my daughters can handle themselves you know my daughters don't need you know me to filter out and discern who's good and who's like, no, they are going to, they'll handle it. They'll handle it. You don't got to bury the potty. Yeah, I don't got to do all that.

They'll, yeah, trust me. Makes sense. But the thing is, you know, that's like a very specific thing, but that's the way life is. And if your kids, you're not going to be there when they get peer pressured. You're not going to be there when there's a dumb decision to make. You're not going to be there. So you have to send them into the field with the, the, the, values in place with the reputation in place with the identity in place that they're making the

right decisions not based on not based on you and your presence but based on them and who they are that's what the goal is and you know i was talking about that the other day it was like the difference between um well if i drink my dad will kill me or if i drink i'll get in a lot of trouble which a kid can say when they're 12, 13, 14. But when they say, no, I don't drink, that's infinite, exponential, more powerful. Because now that's not, this is who they are. It's not their dad.

This is who they are as a human being. No, I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I, you know, I'm not going to do this stupid activity that could result in some kind of a, criminal record, right? Those are all, and believe me, like when you're a kid, it's like, that peer pressure can be strong,

but that peer pressure can overcome your dad or your mom who's not there in that moment, but it's not gonna overcome who you identify as a human. Yeah, that's, you know, like, I don't do that. The, so that attitude and adopting the attitude and having an identity that's strong and raising your kids so that they are who they are.

That's what we're trying to do. And, you know, that does apply to our Marines or our sailors or our soldiers. What is their identity? And what's their reputation? Because if their reputation is like, hey, this is a dude that you don't want to mess with, he's like squared away.

They're always trying to uphold that reputation. If their identity is like, oh, kind of a slacker doesn't really care, Cool. It's really easy to get wild and do dumb stuff. Yeah. So keep that in mind. What we're doing is we're helping people build their identities. We're strengthening their identities.

Sometimes we've got to correct their identities. Sometimes people get identities imposed upon them or they have to be careful that their identities don't get imposed upon them because, oh, that person's stupid or, you know, she's, she's dumb or she's whatever. Or he's, he does, like all those identities are getting imposed. No, they build it. You need to help them build it so that they know who they are so that they make the right decisions when they're in the field.

Yeah, and I will say that like raising kids and there's a lot of hot button topics like this. We're raising kids, there's many different ways of success. But I do feel like fundamentally there are these things and these are some of them that are like fundamentally in principle are universally beneficial. Yeah. Because there's like, you know, like different environments, different people, different, like family environments, different, you know. So there's many ways to success. So I'm not saying, you know, if you punish your kids, you're wrong. I'm not actually saying that at all.

But yes, I do think that fundamentally these these principles are solid. No. And, you know, I didn't apply this stuff as well when my kids were little. I was, you know, didn't really know. Hadn't really made the connection yet. But part of it I definitely instinctively felt. And and but because that's why I don't think I did. I didn't, I didn't get too far outside the bounds, right?

You know, like I definitely imposed some hardcore punishments on my kids, but it was only a number of small number of times where I felt like they did something that, uh, I didn't approve of. And again, even in those situations, I look back, I'm like, well, you know, you're, didn't need. didn't need to be all that. But, but, you know, now as I look back, it's like, oh, yeah. One of the reasons they got, well, the reason they got punished is because of my failure. My failure to really do, you know, put, instill the right stuff in them at a certain time. And, and be like, oh, a lot of times when someone makes a mistake, and this is very often in the SEAL teams, when someone makes a mistake, you don't have to punish them.

them at all their self punishment is worse than anything you're gonna do to them and a matter fact the the best last worst punishment you can give them is like nothing you know what I mean that's like the worst best punishment and as I you know as my kids got older and I started to kind of put connections together more it was like oh like you've you've heard my kids talk about me shunning that which is just awful they freaking hated it I like wouldn't talk to him wouldn't look at him and they would hate it but it was like oh yeah oh you want to act like that okay yeah I heard that from my son the other days I have a if someone is going to do something that I do not agree with I'll say okay and I asked Laif I was like hey Thor

said I do this and he was like oh yeah 100% he goes I've heard that plenty of times I'm like okay like hey you know I recommend you do this oh I'm not gonna do it that way okay yeah and I've probably said it before I'll sit again it's like that that it's that torment, it's like a, it's like a deep torment. And it goes for anyone like when anyone where you have any kind of like if you care about the person at all. Like yeah, it's like a deep torment. Because like when you put signals out to the world, like you need feedback. If you don't, that's all, you know how like you ever heard of that that room that's like the most quiet room in the world or something and people go crazy? Yep. It's basically that. So like even us in this room, which is, you know, pretty much soundproof.

If you close your eyes and you talk, even to the subcont, you can get a feeling of, okay, where am I at this table? You can kind of pick it up a little bit, right? With a sensory, like, because you got feedback. If I say some, if I knock on this, I hear it or whatever. What if I knocked on this and I couldn't hear it? I'd be like, oh, baffled and confused.

And maybe even like kind of scared in a weird way. Is what I'm saying? This confusion, you know. Sensory deprivation. Exactly right, bro. So now. Emotional deprivation. Yeah, on a relationship level to someone

that you care. So it's like, if you're mad at me, bro, just tell me you're mad at me. You know what I'm saying? Or, uh, if, you know, if I'd say a joke like, bro, give me a little fake laugh. Give me something. Br, don't act like you didn't here. Brow, I'm gonna be all discombobulated. So, oh, yeah, bro, you get someone who like actually let someone in your family. Yeah, like that's some torment. I'm not ready for it. It's rough. It's rough. I do not recommend. I do not recommend, but you know, we live and learn. We live and learn. Uh, next one. Again, this is a ways to improve discipline. Develop mutual trust and confidence through tough, stressful training.

Challenge subordinates to according to their capabilities. Encourage and foster the development of self-discipline. Be aware of conditions conducive to breaches of discipline and eliminate them where possible. Donuts. Eliminate or reduce meaningless tasks and assignments. Oh, man, that's such a good one. Please remember that. Those are you in the military?

And anywhere. Such a leadership win when you go, hey, you know what? This is dumb. We shouldn't do it. Rotate personal. personnel assigned to menial tasks, yep, don't have one person doing all crap work all the time. Provide guidance and assistance, but don't over-supervise, set high-performance standards, encourage innovation, and support your subordinates.

It's weird because people don't think of that. When you think of discipline, you don't think of encourage innovation, right? That doesn't sound like the way, but this is how you improve discipline. Got a section here called Espritacore. Whereas morale refers to a Marine's attitude, A spriticor is the unit spirit. Is the common spirit reflected by all members of a unit and provides group solidarity.

It implies devotion, loyalty to the unit, and all for which it stands and a deep regard for the unit's history, traditions, and honor. Sprita core. And things you can look for, expressions from the Marines that show enthusiasm for and pride in the company,

a good reputation among other companies. Again, this reputation thing It's a big deal. A strong competitive spirit. Willing to, willing participation by members in company activities. Pride in the history and traditions of the company. Those are things you're looking for. Ways to improve a spriticor.

Be the symbol of fighting spirit you want to develop. Start new people off right by ensuring their welcome into and reception by the unit. Include an explanation of the unit's history, traditions, and its mission, mission, and activity. Train your Marines as a team. develop the feeling that the company as a team must succeed. Instruct them in history and traditions. Develop your Marines to the very finest physical condition and train them to perfection in all military skills.

Recognize and publish the achievements of the company and members reinforce all successes. Use appropriate and proper ceremony, slogans and symbols. Use competition wisely to develop a team concept. Try to win in every competition. Employ your company according to its capabilities use decorations and awards properly make your Marines feel that they are invincible that no power can defeat them and that their success of the core and country depends on them and the victory of their unit Jack sprit of core stuff's important you know the feeling I think it's a primal feeling That we want to be and you hear this all the time why'd you join the military? I want to be part of something bigger than myself

That's kind of a trite saying but it's a real thing wanting to be a part of a team. That's why gangs exist. That's why teams exist. You know, gang's a better example. Because, like, why are you in a gang? You're doing criminal stuff. Why would you, why do you need to be in a gang?

Yeah. You want to be something bigger yourself. Yeah. Yeah, it almost has this weird feeling of like a, you know, like a, it's like driving a car. You know that, like, you know why people get road rage. It's almost like their, their feeling of power that now becomes this, standard gets compromised. So like someone cuts them off, someone's driving too fast or too slow.

Like you've ever been driving in a regular lane like not in the past lane necessarily? And then you see someone speed past you like going hundred miles per hour in like a slower lane. It kind of is like, hey, what are you doing? You know, like can kind of bother you. That fire you. No, not really. I was thinking of more of like a mild example of something that doesn't really affect you. But on the street it does. Just because I feel like your power gets elevated. And then all of a sudden it gets compromised in some way and then it elicits this weird road rage that's i think that how it works you know so anyway that car and that being behind the wheel or whatever is like this i don't know for like a better term force multiplier kind of scenario right so that's why we like gangs or like being

part of like this clan or this group or this whatever because it's like i have the power of the group and the group has and i contribute to that group you see i'm saying so like now this group in me are like kind of one and we can make freaking huge moves and the group and Big power. That's a primal thing. Yeah, exactly. If I want to survive in the jungle, I need to have a gang.

Yeah. That I got their back and they got mine. Hell yeah. That's what we're doing. So how can you utilize that? That's a spree to core. Next section, cohesion. Cohesion is the product of bonding

that Marines have with each other, with their leaders, and with their company. Combat studies and research have demonstrated that members of cohesive units are more resistant to psychological breakdown due to battlefield strength. How do you build unit cohesion positive competent leadership stability focus on the mission

Respect leaders who lead cohesive units fundamentally respect their Marines and that leads us right into leadership skills You hear me talk about leadership being a skill here's some leadership skills Planning planning planning is a leadership skill yes it is if time permits involve others in your planning I would say you better involve others in your planning it takes longer to plan by yourself than it does to have the team help you plan. So I don't even say if time permits, no, involve all this in your planning. It'll make it better. Identify the alternatives that you think might help accomplish the mission. For each alternative, develop a plan to cover things that could go wrong, expect them to go wrong.

Remember, winners make things happen, losers let things happen. Here's a section I have to cover. It's called time management. Time management as a leadership skill. I actually have not talked about this in depth before. Time is a critical resource to a company commander, and every human being there is. It can never be replaced. Therefore, plan and manage time carefully.

Some of the most important decisions you will make as a company commander will be on the use of your time and that of your subordinates. One myth about time management is that the harder you work, the more you get done. Unfortunately, there is not necessarily a direct relationship between hard work and positive accomplishments. Therefore, it is much better to work smarter than harder. Another miss is that the person who is apparently very active or works long hours accomplishes a lot. However, as a company commander, you are judged by results achieved not by time spent or energy

expended. Therefore, to have successful results manage your time in people effectively. So my youngest daughter, who was in high school, she, so my, my oldest daughter worked, was doing homework every night, like all, all night. Just homework, just dug in at the table. I would go to bed at 11. She'd be doing homework.

I'd wake up at 4.30, she'd be doing homework. Rana, Coach Hannah. She did a lot of homework. Not as much as my oldest, but she did a lot of homework. like excessive homework. My son, not so much homework. Also COVID. So not so much homework was going on.

My youngest daughter, I don't know how she's doing it. I don't know. So I asked her. I said, hey, do you remember your sister's, she's kind of, you know, because she's quite a bit younger? I said, I said, you know, they would be doing homework all night long, like every night. And on the weekends. I said, wow, how come you don't, I said, how come you don't have to?

to do that much homework. I know what she said? I'm more efficient. Yeah, yeah. So there you go. She said, I'm more efficient. Okay, check. So the following are some guidelines

for proper time management. Obtain from the supply system, a month in-site calendar, and a calendar that allows you to record scheduled events on a daily basis. Keep your calendar up to date at all times. Record new events as soon as possible on the calendar. Carry a things to do notebook in your pocket. pocket. Identify the task and write it in your book. After the task is complete, cross it out,

and record a date and time when you accomplish it. Early every day, review your monthly calendar and your things to do notebook. When you have a lot of to do in a day, write out a list of things to do today and list them by priority. Try to do them in that order. Set aside specific time each day to spend with your Marines regardless of your other commitments. Set aside time during the day to do paperwork. Always try to do your paperwork during this period. except when an emergency prevents it. Try not to spend more than four hours per day in your office. Establish time limits for your meetings.

Don't let them run over this limit. And I would say make your meeting shorter. You don't need an hour meeting. You need a half an hour, sometimes 15 minutes. When there's a time conflict, establish your priorities based on your missions. High priority activities must come first. And I would say, I've been trying to put this word out for quite some time. Do your strategic things first.

Do the long-term projects first every day the first long-term project we all have is our health do that first every day Then the next term long-term thing that you're trying to get done whatever it is do that thing next and then start doing the stuff that's due tomorrow or do this afternoon Remember time wasted is time lost Plan to use every minute of every day to the fullest there are just too many things that you must do to prepare your Marines to fight and wind you must take control and effectively plan to use all of your time to maximum advantage. And I'll tell you this, in that schedule, you got to put scheduled time to do where you don't have anything scheduled.

You know, like maybe it's before lunch, maybe it's after lunch, maybe it's mid-morning. You take 40 minutes or 45 minutes where you've got nothing. So you can, because it's going to be adjustments, man, you've got to make little adjustments. And if you're trying to lock in too tight of a schedule, things start to slip. So plan yourself some fudge time.

Fudge factor, we used to call it. Conducting a meeting. Schedule the meeting, establish an agenda, determine the purpose. These are kind of basic stuff here. One thing it says is record the results to inform those who could not attend. And another thing is when you have things

that you come out with in a meeting, someone has to take ownership of those things. If there's a change that's taking place. If there's something that needs to get done, someone has to have ownership of that. call company meetings only when they are absolutely necessary good call communications you know information must flow quickly must be accurate and must be a get tall parts of the unit if the flow up down and latterly is not continuous accurate and timely the company cannot be coordinated

it will lurch along awkwardly union of the various parts of a unit results only through a union of information and action and this is the part i like about this a person's beliefs values character needs, experience, education, and goals combined to form a frame of reference. This frame of reference acts as a filter through which he sees and hears. Since we all have unique combinations of these factors, our filters cause us to see and hear the same situation differently. With this awareness of each person's unique frame of reference, let us discuss several factors that may cause a breakdown. So it's just important to remember that everybody, what you say, the words that come out of your mouth are not the same,

are not heard the same way in the other people's ears. And when they respond to you, what they say to you isn't what they, isn't what you hear necessarily. So you've got to keep checking back with those things and make sure that you don't let them get out of hand. Also, understand how stress affects communication. You need to understand clearly the human tendencies under stress that create communication problems. Be aware that different people do not see the same reality when they look at a situation

or read a message. What each of us sees at a given moment is influenced by our psychological frames of reference, our beliefs, values, characters, knowledge, and past experience, goals, fears, like all those things we just talked about. People do not always see reality. People do not always see reality. You know who's included in that group of people? You. They see what they perceive to be reality. Unfortunately, people's perceptions, especially under stress, are often far from reality. Understress, people tend to see the situation as worse than it is. In battle, Marines tend to use the words like heavy shelling, intense fire, or strong resistance.

But these terms mean different things to different people. Marines at all levels need to be clear and concise in their communication. Prepare your Marines to deal with stress and its effect on communication through tough, realistic training. I used to hit that voice recorder when I was at trade at. You hear guys, we need everyone out right now. I'd be like, dude, you were kind of freaking out? No, I wasn't. Oh, cool.

Press play. Yeah, you were completely freaking out. Teach and demand accurate reporting. You have to be aware of the human tendencies that distort reality. You must cut through them and get correct information with its corresponders with reality. If something is not a known fact, do not report it as such. Report it as whatever it is, a perception of belief and opinion or assumption. Teacher Marines to report matters exactly as they know them based on what they see in here.

So there you go. And you got to remember, you got to keep that in mind that people are going to exaggerate. They're going to be emotional. So you got to, you got to, everything's a data point. And data gets skewed. So you've got to just use caution with that. It goes into performance counseling. Performance counseling is a necessary leadership activity.

It clarifies unit goals, enhances subordinate motivation, is essential to the development of individual potential and increases unit effective. Performance counseling provides Marines with information about their current job performance and assistance to improve their future job. So you've got to get feedback to people. They have to be, subordinates have to be informed with their responsibilities and the standards. They have to be provided feedback. They have to be reviewed on a periodic basis. It says every six months and here, at least. Got to develop them.

And the subordinates know how their jobs and work contributes. the overall objectives of their unit in the Marine Corps. And it gets into personal counseling, meaning you've got some personal problems. Be available, develop the ability to listen. Resist any tendencies to sit in judgment. It's a pretty good, pretty important one. Man, it's easy to judge.

Yes, it is. Ensure that your subordinates know that raising a problem will not affect his or her career, except when specified by orders and regulations, maintain strict confidentiality, except where orders and regulations are best, interests of the individual or service to specify otherwise and it gets into some some counseling techniques encourage Marines to talk counseling is a form of communication which is

most effective when it's two-way it is not enough for you to understand your Marine you must also give him the feeling that you are sincerely trying to help him the best way to find out what the other person wants to say is to listen and the best counseling session is usually the one in which the leader talks the least listening is more important than just not talking it requires an active effort to convey that you understand and are interested in what the person is saying a friendly expression and an attentive but relaxed attitude are important make use of phrases like can you give me an example or can you tell me more give some other stuff in here

the leader must be careful not to place himself in the position of appearing to be the all-knowing judge and end up treating the Marine like a child it's to give some good advice here avoid responses like you really blew that one or that sure was stupid that's one of those ones who wrote that part of the book most leaders tend to correct a subordinate when he says something that is obviously wrong to set the marine straight on what he may say if you yield to this temptation he may just clam up and not discuss the promenol important one of your kids kids tell you that something that's going wrong and you immediately jump down their throat bad move they're not you're not going to hear

anything not just in that conversation you're not going to hear anything from them again so you got to keep them keep them in the game One of the most frequent errors made by inexperienced counselors is transforming the counseling session into a game of 20 questions. Avoid questions that are yes or no. Direct questions. This gets in a little bit of the indirect approach. Direct questions unless necessary for seeking information as frequently used in interview techniques can also tend to pin a person down, make him uncomfortable, and even result in his not revealing fully the root of the problem. Consequently, only partial assistance can be given, and the basic problem often remains unresolved.

Neither the Marine nor the counselor confronts the real problem. A more subtle approach is needed with gentle, probing, indirect applied by such questions as, would you care to clarify that for me? Would you, you said your wife hates you? Question mark. I was like, okay, cool. A leader might ask, how can I solve someone else's problems when I can't even solve my own? He can't.

The purpose of counseling is not to solve a person's problems, but to help him solve his own problems. Too often, the concerned leader unknowingly causes harm by telling the follower what to do instead of helping him work out of the problem for himself. Again, this is great parenting advice. Work out of the problem himself and reach his own decisions. Develop a sense of responsibility among your subordinates. Be careful not to become overly involved. in the helping process. Your subordinates must learn to stand on their own two feet and take responsibility for their own personal problems.

Don't always expect to know what to do in every situation. Don't feel embarrassed if you don't know how to handle the case. Don't be too proud to ask someone else. Make referrals. The most important thing is to help the Marine. Know your limitations. If the decision is made to seek expert help, you should become involved in the referral

to the next, to the extent that you ensure contact between your subordinate and the next and the helping expert or agency. So you've got to know it's like, hey, this is not my, this is not my thing. It's not my area of expertise. And I'll close this book out with this. The counseling session does not end

when the Marine leaves your presence. A more important responsibility remains for you and that is to follow up. Inform him of the results of your efforts. If you fail to do this, he may believe you just don't care about his problems. And you will be reluctant to seek help. The problem is passed down on someone else.

It's forgotten. What impression of you your company is drawn from this, not only by the Marine, but the other members of the unit also. How will this affect him in doing his job? He might say to heck with it. Morale and spirit do not grow from such examples. They breed further problems requiring more leader time with Marines, often being blamed for creating them when they may have been caused by an ineffective display of leadership.

Show that you care. And that's the closer right there. Show that you care. Really truly mark of a good leader. And I was up at council with a salon front. I was talking about the most common thread when I think about the leaders that I had. There's one common thread.

That was they cared about. They cared about the voice. Cared about me and I knew they cared about me. So showing that you care, that's the truly unifying mark of a good leader. And you know, just from, look, these are, I don't know, it does. It doesn't seem like you, Echo Charles,

see these as super abstract leadership examples just because they're in the Marine Corps and you are never in the military. And they apply to everything. Leadership, these leadership things apply to everything. How you interact with your family, how you interact with your kids, how you interact with your friends,

your co-workers, your subordinates, your peers, your boss. It's everything, and by the way, it's also you. You are in a leadership position with you. You're the, you're the, you're the, the general, you're the soldiers too, but you're the general. And every decision that you make is, it has impact. And learning the skills of leadership, they look, do they apply to your family? Yes. Do they apply to your, your coworkers and your boss? Yeah, they imply to all those things. But, but really, if you're paying attention, the leadership skills that we talk about, they have to be

applied to you as an individual. You have to apply them to yourself. And if you're not applying these leadership skills to yourself and applying these leadership principles and living these leadership principles everyone else can see that and and it's a problem so apply as always make yourself always start by making yourself the aim of these leadership principles and that does include being disciplined it includes living discipline and the cornerstone of discipline echo charles health and We're working out we're lifting we're training or sprinting we're training jiu-jitsu and by the way training jiu-jitsu are you training jiu-jitsu? You know here and there's something called the origin USA Immersion camp yeah it's freaking awesome it is August 23rd through the 28th it's up in Maine on a lake a beautiful lake in a beautiful setting and it's jiu jihitsu how would how many jiu-sacistu classes are there a day three days or sorry three sessions a day of jiu-jitsu some of it's rolling some of its you know um technique some of it's both some of its

ecological training the whole nine yards you're gonna get it all i would say this about the training it's anything you want so it's like this big buffet of like literally everything which is kind is guided you know you got a you know ghee no-gi-gi-gee but you don't necessarily have to right roll in the gear roll in the no-gee or whatever you could do one you could do you could do you 20 minutes of jih Tijuana day? You could do zero. Technically, you could do zero jih Tijuana day. Or you could do probably,

you could probably do seven hours of jitia a day. Yep. However much you want. Any day you want to. And it could be white belts. It could be blue belts. It could be purple belts. It could be brown belts.

It could be black belts. Yep. You got all kinds of people to train with. And there's freaking epic food. I don't know the food. Yeah. It's like camp food, but it's awesome. Yeah, like good camp.

Barbecues. Everyone's hanging out stories. Like, it's just a good time. It's an awesome time. Hang out with a bunch of people. And that is August 23rd through the 28th. Up in Maine. You can fly into Portland or you can fly into Boston.

It's like two and a half hours from Boston. It's probably what? Hour 10, hour 10, maybe hour 15 from Portland, Maine. But if you want to come up there, we'll be up there. I'll be up there. You'll be up there. We teach up there. It's one of the few times you got mad at me.

No, it's one of the few times that you've freaking committed a violation. I committed a lot. I went, I stepped across the line. Yep. As much smack as I talked to Echo Charles. What was the other time I went across the line? Because you always, I only remember that one. Yeah.

There's one time. You didn't cross the line with me on the other time. You, like, lost your temper or you, like, got annoyed overtly. What was it about? We're talking about working out. And I think you didn't understand what I was saying because, you know, my knowledge is very vast and it becomes very complex. And you didn't understand it.

And then you were like, like, what the hell are you talking about? What were you saying? Remember the, what it was, the expression, moving your body through space. Oh, that's right. We're talking about doing legs. Yeah.

And you're like, blah, blah, blah. And there's categories of, of whatever. And I was explaining it to you and you just, you kind of got lost in the woods, you know, mentally couldn't understand what I'm saying. And then, you know, that was on the podcast, too, wasn't it? While we were recording. So if anyone wants to hear me, lose my mind,

it's because Echo Charles was talking about moving your body through space. I didn't know that that was actually like an expression. It was a thing. Yeah. It's a thing. Like I've seen in other places now. Correct.

So you and truth be told in all fairness, did you lose your temper? No. But you went from, you colored outside the lines as far as, you know, like being, you know, keeping it playful. But, um, like there was genuine irritation in your, uh, behavior kind. I can, I can see how that would just hit me wrong. You know what I mean? Especially with the, with the, let's say the tone that you would have,

which is the tone that you have sometimes, by the way, when you start exploring your vast knowledge about working out, there's a lot of confidence that comes in. A lot of confidence. You know what I'm saying? You know, we could say it's borderline arrogant. That's not arrogant. So probably that struck me a little bit.

Well, okay, yeah. And yeah, okay, I understand. But the other time that I crossed the line was you were teaching a move. You were teaching some kind of a choke. And as you showed the example to the class, and you're like, oh, and then you just put the pressure here and then you can get him to tap, but I didn't tap.

And then I purposely didn't tap, and then it just wouldn't tap. And then you just got on the way to do that. Yeah, it looked like I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. So it's like my whole credibility is just completely gone, by the way. Yeah, thank you for that. Which, by the way, the, the bro cool way

to show a move is, He's like, yeah, and then I put the pressure here on echo and I don't squeeze at all and you tap and it's like you don't need any extra tension on your arm or on your neck. So everyone's just being cool. And it's like, oh yeah, and here you go, put the pressure and then they tap and I tap

and you didn't put me any pressure at all. Literally did not hurt one bit, didn't you feel any choke and you just tap. So maybe when you started to squeeze a little bit, I was kind of like, oh, now you wanna see you. Oh, okay, okay. It's my fault then. No, no, no, no, no, it's my fault.

So I caused it though. But I'm saying I didn't get the, vibe that it was one of those moments where you were just like, oh, yeah, and then you put the pressure and then they tap. You were just like, oh, and then you started putting pressure. Yeah, you're right, though. I mean, I didn't mean to. Actually, I think you're right. Because I didn't mean to, but I think, you know how like, because when you demonstrate a move on certain partners, I am used to actually doing the move until my partner kind of taps because it's usually with, you know, you or another black belt or something like this.

But, but, so maybe I was just doing it out of habit. But you're right, though, because when you demonstrate on me like at the muster or whatever like you don't do it until I tap you don't put the pressure yeah do this right here right I changed my voice yeah put a little squeeze and then they tap and then I didn't squeeze you at all yeah and sometimes I don't even have to tap because it's like oh you didn't even put the per off I didn't even realize that oh miscommunication miscommunication maybe I had it coming to me that showing off like oh let's make a talk with that hey that's we're all crazy uh hey but if you want to see me torment echo Charles and not tap to his display moves.

There's so many great jujitsu people are going to be there too. I mean, obviously you've got the deck. DeLisch. A bunch of great. All the black belts is crazy. It's a crazy number of awesome black belts. It's a jiu jitsu vacation.

Yeah, it's a jihitsu vacation. That's exactly what it is. Immersion camp. So it's August 23rd through the 20th. Come out. Come out, check it out. Go to originusa.com to get there. And by the way, when you're there,

you get all kinds of jihitsu. get all kinds of origin stuff. We have like a camp store who just sell everything there. It's all like discount. You can just get, bring an extra bag. Oh yeah, yeah.

Because you buy a lot of stuff. You just walk away with so much cool stuff. So check it out. OriginUSA.com. Come to the Jiu Jiu-Jitsu immersion camp in Maine, August 23 through the 28th. Hey, by the way, when you're there also, we got a very, very good supply

of something called Jock Fuel. Because when you're training in jiu-jitsu, either for 20 minutes or for seven hours, you're going to need some fuel. We recommend dark fuel. We got hydrate. We got protein. We got energy drinks.

We got joint warfare. Super krill oil. We got everything that you need that's going to help you. We got muscle drive. I'm on muscle drive right now. Like currently, that's what's in my stomach. That's one, yeah. It's actually one hydrate, one muscle drive, scoop.

That muscle drive is good to go. We got everything that you need. So go to jacofuel.com. Get what you need. Also check out your local store, whatever it is. We got jaco fuel in so many stores across the country. If they don't have it, if they have it, get it. Much appreciated, by the way.

Clear the shelves, all that stuff. But if they don't have it, just ask them. Say, hey, we want jaco fuel here. We want the clean option. That's what we're doing. Joccofuel.com. Go get some. Also, don't forget about jocco store.

We can represent on the path. We got shirts. Shirts is kind of the main thing. But we got hoodies on there as well. Some hats on there. A lot of people like those hats. Some hoodies on there. Shorts on there.

Actually, a lot of merch because we do it all over kind of thing. Anyway, discipline equals freedom. Good. Stand by to get some. Get after it and some other stuff. You know, some new stuff. Do you have any subscription scenarios on there? We do have a subscription scenario.

If you're interested, it's, we call it the shirt locker. You know, every month you get a new design. You know, people seem to like that one. Now, when we get kind of creative. Every once in a great while will release one of the shirts from the shirt locker to the general public for a limited time. Sometimes, just keep that in mind.

But good news is, if you're part of the short locker, no matter when you join, you have access to all the past shirts. See what I'm saying? You get a little login and stuff. You can go back and shop the whole thing. It's cool. So, you know, if you see a past design somewhere and you're like, oh, I missed it, you didn't miss it.

So I'm saying? You can just go back and buy it. So it's good. You know, yes, it's all on jocco store.com. Jack. Go get some. We got a bunch of books. Put your legs on by Rob Jones.

Need to lead by Dave Burke. I've written a bunch of books about leadership. I've written a bunch of kids books. Way the Warrior Kid. By the way, coming out, November 25th. Be on Apple. November 24th, have I said that yet on this podcast? I don't know.

November 25th, global release of the movie, Way of the Warrior Kid, starring Chris Pratt. as Uncle Jake. So be ready for that. And in the meantime, get the books. Also, Colorado Craft Beef, if you need some sake, check that out. Eschalonfront.com.

We teach these leadership principles in all types of different environments to all different types of organizations. So check out echelonfront.com. We also have an online training academy, Extreme Ownership.com. We can learn these skills online. And furthermore,

if you want to help families, and service members, families, active and retired, you want to help their Gold Star families as well. Check out Mama Lee's amazing charity organization. It is called America's Mighty Warriors. And if you want to donate or you want to get involved,

go to America's Mighty Warriors.org. Also check out Heroes and Horses.org. And then you've got Jimmy May's organization Beyond the Brotherhood. There's a swim happening in August. Check out Beyond the Brotherhood.org to get involved in that. It's in New York City. You can participate.

You can swim. You can do some pull-ups and some push-ups out in the Hudson River right there. So check that out. Check out Warriors in Need. Dot org as well, helping aviation folks from the military get involved in the civilian sector. Get jobs in the civilian sector. If you want to connect with us, check out jaco.com and then on social media. I'm at Jocco Willink.

Echoes at Echo Charles. Just don't spend too much time on there because it's a waste of your life and don't do it. Thanks to all of our uniform personnel around the world right now. And it's a new world right now. We got these drones. We got these AI. We got all the chaos that these technologies bring to the battlefield. It's a totally different battlefield.

So thank you all for stepping up and taking on these challenges to protect us and to protect our way of life. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for stepping up and protecting us here on the home front. And everyone else out there, some good lessons. Lessons to review, lessons to reiterate, and the lessons to live by. And if you can live by these lessons, everything's going to be a better set. A good example. Be competent at your job.

Get rid of meaningless. tasks and assignments get rid of those things set high standards maintain a high level of physical conditioning of course remember that discipline conquers fear and that means you have to build your discipline every day and the way you do that is by going out there and getting after it and that's all we've got for tonight and until next time this zecho and jocco out