Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: People Are Like Terrain to be Used For Advantage | Getting Back on The Horse

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

People can be like terrain.My team hates criticism.Learning Guitar.Alcoholism as a result of tragedy.I need you to yell at me for motivation.Getting back on the horse.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko underground podcast. It's number 52 sitting here with Echo Charles, E.C. in the house. I was out at Gettysburg. We're doing the echelon front battlefield, doing the battlefield walk. And I went on this little kind of like tangent, not really a tangent. A riff, maybe. Sure. You know, what do you, when you see me do this kind of thing,

like going off about something? You digressed a little bit? No, but it's not a digression. It's not a digression. Wait, like, what is there? Digression's bad, right? Digression leads us nowhere. It's positive.

Well, not necessarily. I think technically digression just means like you're going in one direction with a whatever and then you went off in a different direction. We're not moving in a good direction though. Like, oh, but I digress. Then I have to get back to the subject. Let's say the initial direction, but sure. So I. Diverted my comments.

And anyways, we were talking about terrain. You know, you're out there on the battlefield. You can see like high ground and low ground and how important it is and impactful it is. And then I kind of went on this explaining that people are terrain. Because there's some real similarities between people and terrain because if you're a good battlefield leader, you can look at the terrain and you can figure out how best to use it

and how it's use it to your advantage and how it's going to help you win the battle. Also, you can't look at a hill on, on the map or on the ground and be like, hey, I don't really like the way this hill is. I'm going to move the hill. You can't do that. Yeah, yeah. That's true. You have to utilize the terrain.

So people are like terrain in that. They got some advantages to them. You know, this guy's really, really smart at math. Cool. Where am I going to put him? Accounting department, right? You know, this person really enjoys conversation with people where I'm going to put him, sales department.

Right? So you have terrain and people are terrain and you can't look look can you change them a little bit over time sure But they're not going to change a hundred percent you can you can make some small they're not even going to change You're lucky to get someone to change you know 15 20 percent They can change important important difference they can change So if you echo Charles like the classic cases let's say you hit rock bottom. If you hit rock bottom, you can change.

You can be like, I'm never taking drugs again. I'm never doing, whatever. Whatever made you hit rock bottom, you're gambling, you're drinking, whatever thing was, you can change. But I can't change you. Or it's very difficult for me to change you. Let's say you are a micromanager. I can move you a little bit.

I can get you to micromanage less. But unless you say, you know what, man, I am a micromanager and I know it's not good, I'm going to change. then that's different. Then we can make some real progress. That's why one of the key factors of what I try and do when I work with people is not me impose the truth onto them, but show them what they're doing.

So they go, you know what? I feel like I'm micromanaging my team. And I go, yeah, you know, that probably feels like that to them. You know, so it gets, they see it themselves, then they want to change. So what I ended up talking. I mean, I'm talking about this quite a bit lately, is understanding what tendencies people have, right? So that's what we have to do.

We have to read the terrain of our people. Is this person a micromanager? Is this person obsessed with details? Does this person not care about details? Because if I'm like got a critical part of a project that relies on excruciating detail, I'm not put an echo Charles in charge of that project, right? That's not your thing. It's not your detailed thing.

If I have something that's going to require a creative solution, then maybe I'm like hey I'm gonna put echo on this thing because he's gonna have to see the vision and create something that that people will feel okay well that's an echo Charles thing so I've got to know and understand what your tendency is are you too emotional and if you're too emotional I've got to I've got to not only assign you into positions where those emotions will be mitigated but I've also got to think oh we're a about to echo is about to get some bad news about the project I need to go down there and make sure that he stays under control Maybe you're too analytical right where you're walking around like a robot and That something's going wrong with the team and they're all upset and you're just like I don't know what the problem is Let's move forward you know and then you losing connection with your team and that's a problem Maybe you're too aggressive. Maybe you're not aggressive enough so we can go through all these different traits But what's important for me as a leader is just like I read the terrain out on the battlefield,

hey, here's some high ground, here's some low ground, here's a ravine, I can utilize this for dead spaces. We approach the target. Like all those things that I'm going to study about the train, I have to try and understand that about my people too. So that makes sense, right? You understand? You're tracking.

You're nodding. What'd you write down over there? You got commentary? No. No, you kind of covered it, though, after I wrote it down, how you, you know, you name all these traits, right? And then you're like, okay, you don't think of it in terms of like, oh, I hate that they're like that. And they need to change or whatever. It's like you've got to kind of work around it or over it or even utilize it really.

Yes. So if, let's say someone's like a big one is like stubborn, right? Someone's like stubborn. Yeah. So the wrong way to think about it. This is the initial thought that when you were talking ahead or whatever. Where if they're stubborn, like, it's so frustrating when someone's stubborn and they don't want to budge on something. But it doesn't have to be frustrating if you look at it in terms of, hey, it's just like a mountain.

It's like you're trying to do something. The mountains in the way. It's like you're getting frustrated that there's a mountain there. That doesn't help you at all. You got to focus on what you should do. You know, how do you maneuver kind of thing. So two things on that. There's a famous operation in Vietnam that the seals.

did where they scaled a cliff to get to the target. And the enemy never thought that anyone would ever scale this cliff. So it's exactly what you're saying. Hey, here's this cliff. It seems impassable. Guess what? We're going to utilize it. You have someone that's really stubborn.

Oh, you have a project that you know is going to take a hard nose to get through this project and get everything done. Maybe that's the person you assigned. And I'll tell you another thing that's interesting. With your kids. you know, and you think, oh, my kid's so stubborn. Okay, what is, how is that a positive quality? Because it is a positive quality.

You know, you could say stubborn. You can also use a different word, determined. Those are almost the same words, right? Yeah. Those are almost the same words. Hey, won't give up, keeps going, won't compromise on this. That's determination. So how do we as a parent, as a leader, find the best way to utilize the human terrain

and put people? in a position where they're going to be successful and they're going to help the mission. So that's part one. Part two. Straight out a son, Sue. You got to understand your own

tendencies. You've got to understand your own terrain. You've got to know what you are and who you are in life and as a leader. You got to recognize when you're 16 years old that you fall for girls too quick. You go ahead over here.

deals, right? Or you fall for guys too quick. You've got to realize that. You've got to say, oh, I get this feeling and I feel like I'm way out of control. And I feel like I'm way too in the game and supportive and on board with this with, with people I get around. You get hyped on them. So you got to, you got to calculate that.

Are you too quick to judge others? Are you too trusting? That's a big one. You just try hey, that sounds good, right? You can be too trusting. You got to know that. And this is really, you can start to recognize these things. Like I wish somebody would have said this to me when I was 15.

Because you can start recognizing this stuff when you're 15. Are you too trusting? Are you not trusting enough? Are you wanting around paranoid at everyone? You're always freaking out. And you're like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to compromise. So you can end up there.

Are you risk averse? Or are you reckless? You know, I'm kind of breaking these things into a dichotomy like you're either or and some stuff you're cool Some stuff you're well balanced, which is great. So you know you're well balanced and you know that you're pretty good at assessing risk and that's a good thing to be okay, cool So you can check that one off. You don't have to worry about it too much and then you know when it goes from life and then and there's a whole bunch of other things we could talk about You know, are you careless with your money or are you too frugal with your money? Some people some people are so frugal with their money. They're you know, they die with you know all this money in the bank you know and you know the say the old saying goes you can't take it with you right so what do you you know why didn't you go

to the free go to you know go and surf for a weekend instead you were didn't want to spend that gas money yeah so figure out what your own tendency is what your own terrain is and same thing with leadership perspective are you a micromanic do you tend to be a micromanager do you tend to be obsessed with the details do you tend to get emotional do you tend to get too aggressive and and then what you have to do is you have to take those tendencies that you have and you have to put them into the calculus of your decision-making you have to you have to put that denominator in there somewhere on your formula to say yeah I know I'm

super hyped about this girl but I also know that that I get super hyped about girls. So before I make this step, I need to put that in the calculus. And here's the thing with all this. You're only gonna be able to see it if you're able to detach. You're only going to be able to,

guys that are super, I keep on bringing up guys that are super hyped on girls. Why? Because in the teams, bro, you get like, you know, the guy he meets the girl, you know, and it's just game on. I mean, he's losing his mind. He's just going crazy about this girl. And, you know, you see it happened with girls, too.

Those girls that would, like, go full, uh, what's the, what's the movie full on? Like, they're just. 27 dresses? No. No. The girls tries to murder the guy. Oh, freaking fatal. Fatal attraction, right?

There's that too, you know? So you can get all these things happening. Yes. So these are what we want to watch out for. You can't see that. When you're, when you are. in that zone you don't you don't see it yeah you don't see it at all yeah people that lose their temper seldom recognize it well they definitely don't recognize it while

it's happening sometimes their afterthought it's like man i should have lost my temper yeah now i'm going to jail again for punching someone up you know so we have to take a step back in order to see the terrain you got to take a step back so you can see it when you keep when you're standing right in front of it just it's just dirt yeah you have to get far enough away from it that you can actually make out the terrain features so that's my recommendation start to pay attention to the people around you what is that terrain read that terrain learn to read that terrain and then take a look at yourself figure out your own train where are you at yeah don't let it get

you jammed up yep and it tends where and then I'm sort of kind of thinking of it because terrain can also help you right so we don't we don't know this or we don't I'm just totally thinking of my It feels like I don't I will almost like I won't notice this idea if it's terrain or a person that's like that's conducive to whatever, right? So it's like, you know, you hang around with your circle of friends and they typically have the same interests as you. So it's like there's no contention, right? But when you're working, there kind of is. So that mountain kind of seems like kind of is in my way as opposed to when you're with your friends.

It's like, oh man, we could just jump in this river on our boat and be weighed and get down. stream way quicker than you know so it's so to work for you and you don't like necessarily um have to do any work to to utilize or whatever but you guys you and uh laf at the muster for example you guys use a couple of good examples of this where you know when you guys do the role play yep um who's the guy fred ike i don't know what whatever the name is Arnold Arnold so the one where you go and Arnold has a big ego he has a lot of experience um He's hardheaded, right? All this stuff.

So how you play on his ego, you know, where it's like, hey, your team will, Arnold's like, you know, my team's not going to be down for this thing or this new change in this, you know, method B or whatever you say. That's just a classic. Yeah, yeah. But then you play his ego. Arnold says, there's no way my team was going to go with this new procedure. And I kind of say, yeah, but Arnold, those guys look up to you like. So that is a little excerpt.

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