Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: Teamwork (Cover and Move) Does NOT Always Work.

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

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This is the Jocko Underground podcast number 195 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. We have various questions from the troopers, the members of the underground. And we're going to provide guidance, suggestions, recommendations, courses of actions, and in some cases, answers to your questions. Let's get into it. We're getting through this maze of life. The maze of life. It can be a maze.

Yeah. Sometimes you take a wrong term. sometimes somebody knows to tell you go left go right go straight right turn around go back right don't go down don't go any further down that particular path go down this other path the path of discipline sometimes you can take one two three four wrong turns and it takes more than just one correction maybe two maybe three corrections you're saying can happen that's what we're for all right what do we got first question hello mr willing my company buys in fully to extreme ownership. I have a question for you tied to covering move. Is there ever a time in your experience

that covering and moving becomes ineffective in the wrong move? Like if you help your team, your teammate, but they are inherently toxic and their involvement in most things are negatively affecting work. Or is that any conceivable, or is that any conceivable scenario that cover and move is not the right call? Yes. Of course, anything that you do, to an extreme can make it bad. And this is why we wrote the dichotomy of leadership because we wanted to make sure that everyone understood that. And this includes taking ownership,

even the idea of taking ownership. If you take that to an extreme and I'm going to own every plan, I'm going to own every decision. And now echo that works for me in my hierarchy, he now has no input because I'm taking ownership of everything. So even extreme ownership can be too extreme. So cover move is the same thing.

And if you have someone, let's say, they're showing up late all the time and you keep covering for them. Look, you show up late. Echo shows up late. I'll cover for them all day, right? All day. I got you. Hey, no big deal. But two days, three days, one week, a month, you're late, late, late, late, late.

You don't learn. You interrupt my capacity. The team is ultimately going to suffer and the mission's going to suffer. So, yes, there's a point where if you keep covering for someone, where it becomes negative. And not to mention if someone's doing something immoral, illegal, or unethical, and you cover for them,

you're culpable for that behavior as well. So that's the clear one. But it sounds to me probably what this person needs is like the escalation of counseling. You know? Like, I'm not saying you need to go, Adam, like, head on, but asking some earnest questions.

Like, hey, dude, how do you think other people perceive you when you act that way in the meeting? Like, I know you're trying to, trying to get your point across, but don't you think that you're making other people defensive? Or, hey, do you think that your behavior right now? Do you think that's helping, like, unify the team

and helps us positively get the mission done? Because, like, what is it you're trying to make happen? Or like, hey, do you think that when you get that super negative in front of the team, like, what do you think that does to the team? You see what I'm saying? It's just asking some questions. And my goal in a situation like that is to, try and help the person see how they're being perceived by others, right?

Not to tell them how they're being perceived by those, but to help them figure out how they're being perceived by others. That's what I want. And then if, you know, that indirect approach starts to, it doesn't, you don't get anywhere with them and they keep behaving the same way. You might have to increase directness to make sure that the team's not negatively impacted, right? So cover move is great, but if I end up covering all the time for someone that's not doing their job,

consistently not doing their job, consistently showing up late, consistently not performing, consistently being inherently toxic, then that is not good. So that's why we initiate that escalation of counseling. So that's the way it is. Just like everything else in leadership, just like everything else in life, you got to be balanced. Let me ask you this. Send it. Let's say,

you know, you know, like, question about the maze here? Yeah, a little bit. No, no,

no. This is actually this total hypothetical. I can't think of any particular person who's like this, but when I want to hear the idea of what if this person is toxic.

So you know, some people, they can be like kind of good at their job or whatever or good enough, we'll say at their job, but they're toxic in the sense that they're super argumentative. Um, they're like blunt unnecessarily,

maybe a little crass, maybe even like, um, they complain like a lot of, they're pessimistic. mistake like just real kind of down to ruin some short-term relationships you know like kind of that kind of person um you know insecure the whole deal right and after a while it's kind of like yeah they're kind of good at their job but above and beyond that they're just like not the person

to be around you know like no one likes working with this person kind of a thing and we get let's face it that's not like some rare thing that when you think about it's kind of like oh we all kind of either have or do know something like this is okay so consider this idea this idea of hey we're gonna like not help this person or we're gonna kind of deliberately straight up deliberately withhold cut the cover and move idea you know like if look if if I see this person about to fail on something I'm not gonna give him some easy advice I'm gonna let him fail you know and I'm almost kind of embracing and encouraging his failure just so he can kind of phase himself out of that organization we'll say

right how much value is that there to that or am I just being toxic now? Well, I think it would depend on the situation where you know, how much have you tried to help them? How much have you tried to steer them in the right direction? And I have said before two people like they're going to dig their own grave. Like at a certain point, you're like, hey, they're going to dig their own grave and you actually don't want to get your hands in the dirt, right? So that does apply sometimes. you know you always make a concerted effort to try and help someone of course you want to help people out you want them you got you got hired I mean not just just beyond like the

human component of like hey dude if I see you going the wrong direction I'm going to try and help you and I'll first start with an indirect question like hey dude you know everyone notices when you're late like you because everything okay you know that whole thing we've been through a thousand times but not only that but as a business you know you hired the person you put in the effort you've given them you've issued them their laptop or their gear or whatever like they like we want people to be successful. But if they start to be where I thought you were going to go with this question was like, hey, if they're negative attitude but they're a good performer, what do you do? Well, you get out

your scale and you weigh, you know, what is the, what is, is this a net positive or net negative? And if it's net positive, okay, we try and help the person. But if it's a net negative, well, we don't really want that. Especially once we've tried to make it a net positive, we've tried to make those adjustments, we've tried the council, we try to talk to them and just still ends up being a net negative. At a certain point, you go, okay. And then it's like, well, we're going to let them dig their own grave. And, you know, how long is it take someone to dig their own grave? Usually when they're that toxic that they can't be corrected, it doesn't take them that long. So, yes, sometimes that is an appropriate course of action. And the other thing that's kind of, I guess,

what I use the digging their own grave is sometimes I've told you, I've been indirect with you, I've escalated directness. And I've literally now told you like, hey, if you keep acting this, way, you're not going to be here anymore. And you still don't listen to me. So it's not until you start to dig you, you start looking around going, oh, wait a second, I can see where this is going. And you self-correct because you were able to realize that what I was saying wasn't just my opinion.

It was for real. So for me, the last sort of step in counseling, in the escalation of counseling, the last step is like, okay, good luck. And you watch them dig their own grave. And on the way out, you know, as they're digging, you're like, hey, Do you notice it's getting dark around you right now? Do you notice that there's like depth underneath your feet? Do you notice that there's a big pile of dirt next to you that's going to cover you?

Do you realize that? Do you realize that like you haven't gotten any calls? You haven't got this person. You know, this thing has happened. You haven't gotten the whatever. Like all those things are adding up. You're not getting invited to the meeting. You haven't been asked to take lead on this project.

All those things. Do you know what that is? That's you digging your own grave. So sometimes the reality doesn't set in until they've started to dug their own engrave a little bit and that's sort of my final uh i would say my final step in escalation of counseling is like okay dude i'm telling you like this isn't going to work out well i had i was working with a CEO that i told hey if you keep acting like this you are going to get fired and he said they can't fire me i created this company i was like okay i was like listen dude i'm telling you

Like the board does not just not your company anymore. It was your company. You did create it. Good job. It's not your company anymore. And if you proceed like this, you will get fired. And by the way, the board told me you will get fired. I told him that.

I'm like, the board told me you will get fired. This isn't me making stuff up. He got fired. So yes. Can you go too far with cover move? You can go too far with any of these concepts. But that is how I would handle it. A little escalation of counseling.

And eventually, do you have to let someone dig their own grave? Yep. I mean, unless you can also just fire them. You can also be like, hey, look, we've done everything for you. This was your last warning. You didn't heat it. You're out of here. You know, because the escalation of counseling goes into written paperwork.

It goes into, you know, a personnel improvement program. It's like the whole nine yards. Yeah. And by the end of it, it's like, yeah, you're not going to be here anymore. Yeah. So if I'm thinking of being actually in the situation because, like, there's such thing as people who have like a bad attitude and do. all these things yet they do technically do their job for sure and basically someone who rubs

everyone the wrong way yeah in every possible way aside from on paper you see what I'm saying like you know the guy's the meeting yeah and there's also there's also people that you go okay cool the person's a really good performer I'm gonna isolate him as much as I can I'm gonna let them kind of do their do what they have to do to get the work done mitigate as much as I can with the rest of the group because they're you know they have a bad they have a negative attitude And I can still let them do that. So yes, I will try isolation as a component. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast.

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