Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: Calandra''s Barometer. Good Questions VS Bad Ones | Allow For Creativity

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

Calandra''s Barometer. Good Questions VS Bad Ones.Allow For Creativity.Raising a bi-racial family in America.Would we benefit from mandatory military service.Dealing with big injuries.Meditation.Recommended non-military reading list.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko Underground podcast number 78 sitting here with Echo Charles. E.C. Yes, sir. And me, Jocco, one link. Callandra's barometer. We're going to talk about this. So this is an urban legend. It's something that was written about by a guy named Alexander Calandra, Calandra, Calandra, something like that. He was a test designer, someone that makes tests. and he made tests for a living, and so he wrote this thing about how to ask good questions versus bad ones. And he published this story in 1959. 1959, this story was originally done. And it was published, it got published many times throughout the years after that.

But the story goes something like this. There's a professor that asked a question on a test. the question on the test is something like how would one find the height of a building using only a barometer? And the correct answer being, or one correct answer being, the anticipated answer is that you, well, you would take a reading at the bottom of the building of the barometer and then take a reading at the top and then find the difference and then calculate the height. based on the change in the barometer.

That's the right answer. But there was a bunch of other answers that came in. You know, one person said, tie a rope to the barometer, lowered off the building, then measure the rope. Someone else said, measure the shadow of the building and measure the shadow of the barometer and you know the height of the barometer

and then you can calculate the height of the building. Another one said mark the height of the barometer on the wall as you go up the stairs like each barometer and you know that the barometer is whatever 12 inches tall and then you multiply it time the number of barometers it took to get to the top of the building now you know how big the building is. Someone else said drop the barometer off the roof calculate the time. What's the how long did it take to hit the bottom? What's the terminal velocity of the barometer? Someone else said trade the barometer with the building superintendents. who has the information and it goes on and on right so there's a lot of different answers to this question and what can we learn from this is that number one formulate of course formulate better questions when you ask them but from a leadership perspective there's more than one ways to skin a cat and the the the less the less You can give someone when you ask them a question or you ask for information or you ask for an idea or ask for a plan the broader

You're going to the broader Variety of answers you're going to get Whereas if you give your opinion first You're going to Enumber other people's ideas with your own ideas There was something was it a general mead in Gettysburg I think I might even said on us on the last underground podcast general me to Gettysburg a general me to Gettysburg a general me to Gettysburg a general to Gettysburg, he would allow the junior people to give their ideas first. This is the same

type of thing. But I think even more important than that is the fact that for anything that there is, for any problem that you're trying to solve, there's going to be more than one solution. There's going to be more than one solution. And from a leadership perspective, it is definitely better to allow the team to use one of their ideas instead of trying to impose your idea on them. And we've talked a million different times about the reasons for that. But this works not just in business. It works at home. Works with your kids.

Works with your spouse. We always think our idea is the best, right? What's the best idea? Mine. Right? But allowing others. to execute to come up with and execute their own plan is almost always the best course of action they get ownership they push through obstacles and they win which means you win so there you go

that's my short message of the day of the underground is there's more there's more than one way to skin a cat you know that that really freed my mind in the seal teams it really freed my mind because in the SEAL teams everyone's a tactical genius right everyone's like no you should you should hit the target from here no you should go in a room like this or no you're just going a room like that and it really freed my mind when I was like well you know you could go in the room that way or you could go in the room that way and they're both good they're both they're both going to have advantages and disadvantages yeah now look you could have somebody that's like who's going like this and it'd be a dumb idea because not tactically sound but there could be three or four

tactically sound solutions to a problem Yeah. And when I figured that out, and I figured that out pretty early, that I was like, oh, yeah, it doesn't really matter. Like, you could go this way, you could go that way. You could hit the target from here. You could hit the target from there. And by the way, then you throw in the entire idea that the enemy gets a vote. And like, well, we're going to hit it from this direction.

Okay. Why? Well, because Intel says the enemy is going to be over here. Okay, but Intel can be wrong. And then what are we going to do? There's a, when you assault a target, you set up a base element and you set a maneuver element. So the base element, let's say, is going to sit on a ridge line and they're going to engage the target with machine guns. And then the maneuver element maneuvers to the target and then maneuvers through the target as the base element shifts fire off the target.

Can you picture that? Yeah. It's a little hard to picture. But basically you have like an L setup. And one part of the L is the base element. They got machine guns. And they're going to light up the target. And while the enemy is distracted by that

and keeping their heads down and getting shot at, that allows the maneuver element to maneuver up into position and push through the target. And as you push through the target, the base element shifts fire. So they're not shooting you. And then you get through the target, the target's secure. And I remember really long time ago,

we had a, I was in a platoon and we had like a base element and a maneuver element for the, target that we were doing a target assault out in the desert and uh the platoon commander was like hey we're going to take all of our machine guns and put all of the machine guns in the base element that seems to make sense because the base element like you want massive firepower from the base element and the guys that are on the maneuver element they're maneuvering so you want guys with smaller guns you know they're not carrying a big belt fed machine gun they're just walking through

the target with their little m 16 and just hitting point targets Yeah. So it's like, cool. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Well, the master chief was like, hey, what happens if the maneuver element gets compromised as they approach the target? Meaning before the base element has started shooting, the maneuver element, the enemy sees them. And they start to shoot at the maneuver element.

Well, there's a decent chance that what you need to do is then lay down fire. and let the base element start the maneuver, which means we actually want machine guns in both of the two elements. But I just remember thinking to myself, oh, yeah, so this, we have a plan, but that plan is not guaranteed to happen at all. And this was coming from like a Vietnam seal that was like, hey, you need to have machine guns.

That was when I realized you need to have machine guns with you, like, like period. Like base, maneuver, recon, you can have some machine guns. guns machine guns are like what you need in a gun fight but I realized like oh so these things aren't gonna go as we expect them to go and then I started realizing like and again that was one of those situations where it's like well you could see where it makes some sense to put people in the bay put all the machine guns in the base element but at the same time you're like as soon as he brought that up it's like no that actually doesn't make sense it actually doesn't make sense

to do that yeah now you could have extra machine guns in the base element That's cool, but the, but the maneuver element still has to at least be able to act as a base if it does get into a situation where it's needed. So those kind of situations I eventually learned that most of the time it was like, oh yeah, we could do it that way or we could do it that way. Or we could do it this way and it I didn't get I was never a person that got super hung up on this way or that way. I was never. someone that got super hung up on six or half dozen there's people that get caught up on six or half dozen they're like no it should be six and they're like no it should be half dozen no it should be six no it should be half dozen i don't agree with you at all i hope you burn in hell they fight over they've seen people fight over six or a half dozen yeah so i learned not to do that i learned that there

It was just, if there's a reason there's an expression, there's many ways to skin a cat. Yeah. Look, I'm not saying that you can't come up with something that's not tactically sound. Believe me, there's times that guys come up with ideas and it's like, yeah, that doesn't make any sense. Here's why.

What happens if the enemy does this? Ooh, yeah, we better not do that. Okay, you only have to tell somebody once. And then they put that in their calculus from there on out. But there's more than one way to skin a cat. So, keep up. an open mind. Don't get addicted to your own plan.

And, of course, have machine guns with your maneuver element. Yeah. This is the lesson, right there. Check. All right. Let's get some questions. Where are we got? First question.

Dear Jacques, Ico, my wife is from China, and I'm a Caucasian American. She immigrated here about 14 years ago and worked her own way to get her citizenship. She's an American in spirit and values, living in an American dream. living the American dream. We have two amazing young children who are just entering elementary school. We've been teaching them as much as we can about American values, especially the value of freedom. The amazing opportunity immigration provides and why so many people want to move here. My question is, what advice would you have for raising half? So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast.

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