Jocko Podcast - The Debrief w/ Jocko and Dave Berke #32: Is The Minimum "Okay"?

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

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This is the Jocko debrief podcast, episode 32 with Dave Burke and me, Jocko Willink. We have a leadership consulting company. It's called Escalon Front. And we work with clients from every different type of industry imaginable. I think we literally work with every type of industry, whether it's energy, whether it's finance, whether it's insurance, whether it's construction, manufacturing, just automotive. We work with every different type of industry. and we work with these different companies and we teach leadership. That's what we do.

And so when we work with these companies, obviously they run into leadership problems. And then we as a company, Eschonfront, we debrief those problems so that we all understand what's happening with the client, how we overcome those issues, what leadership solutions we use and utilize to solve their problems. And then all of us can learn. So at a certain point a while back, we decided we might as well make these debriefs, at least some of the high points from these debriefs accessible to more people. That's why we started this little podcast. And what we do is because we have, we want to respect our clients, we change the details of the situation.

So we'll usually use a different industry. will change. So that way their issues inside their organization aren't revealed to the world. And it's interesting. We do a really good job of that because I've had people in the companies that we're talking about, talk about the debrief that we did and say, oh, yeah, that sounds like those guys had a similar thing to us. Yeah, they did.

You know, so that's what we're doing. Thanks for joining us. All right, Dave. Let's debrief. What do you got? the minimum is okay. And that's, you know,

that's hard sometimes to think about that. It's just like you were talking about. Hold on. I'm going to rephrase that. Yeah. You just said, the minimum is okay.

What you meant is, the minimum is okay. Exactly right. It wasn't, it's not a sarcastic statement. It's not a setup. You're literally saying the minimum

is okay. Yeah. That's exactly right. I think that, as we probably made a bunch of people shudder right there, right? There's a bunch of people who are, what are you talking about?

That's not who I want at my company. That's right. Well, we don't necessarily want that at our company, but we end up with that sometimes. Yeah, and it's a topic that the whole point of that, that little sound bite at the minimum is okay is because that's a hard thing to hear sometimes. That's exactly the point of why we're talking about this because that doesn't sound right when you hear it. That doesn't sound right. I don't say, hey, strive for the minimum. You'll be good to go.

I don't think like that. I don't say like that. But there's some context that's really required. And just like you were talking about too, though, is it. every event we do at Eschonfront when we're on site with the clients, we always allocate time for Q&A. And we say that that's really the most important part of what we do is the Q&A because that lets clients ask us questions about what's really going on. Sometimes we explain at the very beginning. We got some theory, some background, some history. But if you're my client and

you ask me a question about a micromanaging boss, that's not a made-up hypothetical situation. That's a real thing you got going on. And that lets us take the principles we teach and apply them to the real things you got going on. That's why the Q&A time that we spent is so important because it's real relevant situations. Yeah, and it's harder than you would think for people to transpose what they hear us say or what they read in the book and transpose that into what's actually happening in their world. You see this a lot with your kids. You know, you'll teach your kids one lesson that obviously so. obviously applies to a bunch of other things,

but when they're young, it's hard for them to figure that out. So it's the same thing with all of us. We don't have quite the pattern recognition that we think we should have. And so that's why we get asked questions, even though we talk about, you know,

we could be talking about cover move and how operations has to support sales. And then, you know, we'll get asked a question, well, and not only does operations have to support sales, but sales has to support operations.

We have to work together as a team. And we'll make that so clear in our minds. and they'll nod their head and say absolutely and then they'll say, hey, you know, we got a problem with our marketing group, not working well with finance. And, you know, it's, yep, yeah. So, totally. That's why the Q&A is important.

Yeah, it's super important. That's one of our favorite things to do. So here's a question. This is what came up. Here's what he said. I have a guy in my team. I can't get to promote. He's stuck in the same role, has no interest in growing in the company.

He just wants to do the minimum and nothing beyond what's expected. I don't get it. What's his issue? So I'm paraphrasing me. That's essentially the question he has. And listen, that's a fair question. Same thing we just talked about. Especially coming from someone, the person who asked this, this person's grown in their

company. They've been promoted. They started off at the beginning. They're now in a managerial role. And he wants the same thing for his people. So the way that he's asking the question, I totally understand that. So it's worth the conversation because he's not alone in that, getting other people try to get them to elevate and promote.

The standard should be high. The standard should be high. And we should have high expectations for our team. But we don't want to begrudge the people that don't exceed that standard. That's why it's the standard. So some things that came out in this conversation. Does this guy do a good job? Yes, does a good job.

Is he meeting expectations? Yes, he's meeting expectations. Is he reliable? Absolutely. He's always on time. He's always where it needs to be. He shows up. This is a guy we can count on.

So you have all these positive attributes. And so you can see how the intent is, oh, this is a type of person. I want him to elevate because he's doing all these things so great. So what's the problem? Well, the other side of the story is the problem and it's good. Here's some comments we've heard from folks, not just on that team, but we hear this all the time and I know there's going to be some experiences you had in the teams as a seal that I had in the military and the Marine Corps as well.

Some of the pushback. I like being a frontline guy. I like that work. I like the hands-on work and I don't want to get promoted to a desk. Okay? Roger. Here's a direct quote from this guy's company. a PM project manager sounds like a nightmare. No thanks. So the next thing up is something

that he looks up because that doesn't look like the kind of work I want to do. My boss wants me working on strategic things. That's not my intent. That's not my strength. I like to be on the ground. So you've got this other side of that story about these people doing good work, meeting the expectations, doing all the things you want right that don't have a desire to do other things. So in this case, you think about it like maybe he's right. Maybe getting promoted isn't worth the salary increase. Maybe it's just not what he wants to do. But most of the time, most of the time, you've got a young kid who's doing good work and you invest in them most of the time and you show them a path and you reveal the opportunities. They're going to want that. That's true for a lot of

people. And we, as a leader, we recommend that. If you're new to my team, I want you to see the long-term path of your potential success where you could end up how you can grow, how you can take on more responsibility, and how you can contribute. And that's how it usually happens. But not all the time, man. That's just not how it is all the time. And I was thinking back in my experience in the Marine Corps in aviation, more responsibility, what that meant was less flying. And a lot of people wanted to fly airplanes.

And I was thinking, like, as a seal, it had to be the same for you. It was like, you know what? The more responsibility you have, the less time you're going to shoot and blow things up. And that's okay for some people. But for other people, it's not in the Army. Army aviation has a rank called warrant officer designed specifically for. the people that's that guy. For that guy. I just want to fly airplanes. And you know what? Good. We need people flying airplanes. So don't spend too much time worrying about that.

There's some things you need to think about, though, some potential risks that this person needs to know. Maybe over his career, that means less money. Maybe he gets assigned to some less impactful projects. Maybe he gets less benefits, less influence, less control, things that we might think we want. We have to at least explain if you're going to stay in this role. These are the things you might lose out on and let them decide whether that's important. Less chance to promote. As their bosses rolling and roll out, you got to acclimate to a new boss every time. Sometimes that means less freedom. Sometimes it means bosses you don't like working for. Your performance reviews are going to reflect your lack of interest elevating. And really all of that is okay.

All of that is okay. Assuming your minimum is good. And I know how it was for me in my career. and I'm sure I know how it was for the SEALs is the minimum standard is a pretty good standard. So if your folks are meaning that, that's okay. And that's what we mean by the minimum. The minimum is okay, assuming all those things are thinking about. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, you get someone that is in a part of their career, part of their life where they got young kids and they want to be going to every wrestling match, whatever. It's like, I don't want to have my phone on a Saturday and have that thing ring and me have to go in and solve some problems.

I work from nine to five. And you know, you get that sometimes this question comes in the form of, you know, I got a guy five o'clock every day. He's the first guy out the door. And they begrudge that. And I get it, right? I get it. But at the same time, did he show up on time? Did he get his work complete?

Like those questions you ran through, did he show up on time? Did he get his work complete? Is he going to be there on Monday at, you know, nine o'clock in the morning when we open up? Is he going to be there ready to go? And if that's a yes, yes, yes, yes. man, I got a reliable, good, solid person, and I like it. I know that there's other military units in the world where if you like being a platoon sergeant, you can stay there.

Yeah. And that's awesome. The SEAL teams is not like that. It is very difficult. I don't know. I mean, let's say you are a pilot that really like to fly. You don't have a choice in the Marine Corps. Do you?

Really? Not forever. No, there's that up and out. I mean, you can't just say a captain. flying fighters. There are certainly different paths. I was thinking, you know this,

but you know the Blackberry. You remember the Blackberry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the Marine Corps. At one point when I was the Admiral's aide, I had two Blackberries. One unclassified and one classified.

Yeah. Well, then you know where I'm going with this because you know what comes with that is when you get promoted and then you get to sign a particular job like you're now in charge of all of operations for the squadron. You know what you get? You get a Blackberry.

Yeah. And what comes along with that is? 24 hour day. When that thing rings, you answer it. So if your kids, wrestling match on Saturday, the Blackberry rings, you're answering it. And yeah, I get it.

I had several BlackBerrys just like you did. And there are some pros and cons that come along with that. Yeah, yeah. The SEAL teams is the same way. Like, you are going to get promoted. And if you're not looking to get promoted, you're going to get higher tenure. You're going to have to get out of the military.

Because you can't get promoted unless you get this certain job. And if you don't get that certain job, you don't get promoted. Now you stay in this rank. And after a certain amount of time at a certain rank, you're going to have to get out. Now, look, in the SEAL teams, I'll probably figure out a way to make it happen. But, you know, BTF, Tony, he didn't want to, he would have stayed a platoon chief indefinitely. And, you know, quite frankly, I would have been a platoon commander over and over and over and over and over again. I'm sure Laif would have done the same thing.

I'm sure Stoner would have done the same thing. You think Leif wanted to go back and be an operations officer? Hell no. No. Not a chance. It's very good. There's people that are in the SEAL teams where, you know, they look at getting a commission and they go, why would I want to get a commission? What?

I like I like being, I like the job of being a SEAL. Yeah. And when you get a commission, your time of doing that specific hands-on job of being a SEAL is not very long. It's maybe 10 years. If you're lucky, if you're unlucky, it might be a couple deployments. if you're lucky, maybe you could do four or five deployments like that. So it is definitely, I don't think it's optimal. I don't think it's optimal that they promote people.

The other thing is there's some people that would actually be, I'm sure you knew people that were like okay pilots and great squadron commanders. Yep. Right? And the same thing in the SEAL teams. You'd have a guy that was like, hey, the guy wasn't the most like shooter. But damn, he was a good, good platoon commander, good task unit commander, good commanding. good commanding officer, you know, the absolute guy you want to send to go and brief some,

you know, brigade commander about what you guys, what capabilities you have, you want to send that guy, even though they're not the best on it, but it's okay. So there's some people we think, ah, this guy, we could probably put that guy in a pretty good spot. And just like, you know, if you're a, if you're a plumber, there's, there's some people that might not be the best actual plumber. They might not be the best at soldering, but they're really good at figuring out books and presenting the clients and going in and talking and saying, yeah, we can remodel this bathroom for you. Here's what we got. So, unfortunately, that's not the way the world always works. But the point of this is, hey, keep that in mind. And this actually flows right into the

thing that I want to talk about today. So the thing I wanted to talk about today is, um, there's, there's this quote from David Lee Roth. You know David Lee? I do. He gave some really good quotes. One of One of his quotes that I really liked was, Money Can't Buy Happiness, but it can buy you a boat big enough to sail right up next to it, which I always thought was a good quote. But he also had another quote, and his quote was,

I'm not like this because I'm in Van Halen. I'm in Van Halen because I'm like this. So David Lee Roth, you know, he was a super kind of flamboyant lead singer that did acrobatic moves and he had long feathered hair and he wore headbands and stuff. Spandex outfits and he loved the camera and the attention and he's a great frontman because of He was great, but that stuff didn't always land great with the rest of the band and there was a lot of tension

There was a lot of drama around it and they he ended up leaving the band and I forget if he was kicked out or if he left or was mutual or whatever, but you know this was after their biggest hit album 1984 which do you remember when 1984 came out? I mean that was on the 100% the radio and MTV 24 hours a day. Just a massive hit. And he left the band for whatever. I forget if it was mutual. I forget if he left.

I forget if they fired him. But they just couldn't get along. Why? Because he acted like David Lee Roth. But the reason he was there is because he was David Lee Roth. And one of the reasons for they had all that popularity was because he was David Lee Roth. And that was his point.

He's like, I'm not acting like this because I'm in Van Halen. No, I'm in Van Halen. because I act like this. And so, you know, the band after he left was never, in my opinion, never is good again. No offense to Sammy Hagar. They made some great albums, right? They made some great albums. But if you want to get prime Van Halen, you're going with that OG lineup.

So it's an important thing to remember. And again, this ties into everything that we're talking about. is that people are who they are and they're going to have good elements and they're going to have bad elements about them. Because, you know, if you work for me, Dave, and you show up every day on time and you do a good job in this task that you have and you're super reliable, but you don't want to get promoted, I can view that as a negative, right? I can be like, oh, he doesn't want any more responsibility. What's wrong with him? It's like, no, actually, there's nothing wrong with him. He's got the job that he likes. He's good at it. He's naturally gifted at whatever that.

thing is why don't I let him do it and and the other thing you have to remember is that your strengths can be your weaknesses and your weaknesses can be your strengths like if you're David Lee Roth and you feel like you're the center of the universe and so you're like I want to you know I want my song to be on this position of the album because like no we don't like that well now we have a problem so the fact that he loved being the center of attention so much was very beneficial when he was going out on stage to entertain thousands and thousands of people, but it was terrible when he was trying to get along with his other bandmates. So we have strengths and weaknesses,

and oftentimes our strength is our weakness and our weakness is strength. So the creative person that you have at your company that doesn't follow the rules really well, right? Or the highly disciplined person that follows all the rules, but they have no creative thought. That's a problem. Or the high energy person? that's always super engaged and excited and they talk too much.

Right? So it's great to have them. It's great when we need energy, but then they won't shut up. They don't know when it's time to shut up. Or the low energy person that doesn't know like, oh, we actually need input right now. Or the person that's really good at speaking, but's really bad at paperwork. Or the paperwork guru, right, that can't get up and brief anybody. Or the social butterfly that's really good at building relationships, but has no follow-through.

So it's great. He goes out and meets a bunch of clients and sets up a bunch of appointments, but then doesn't ever follow through and doesn't ever go to the appointments and we lose a bunch of business. Or the guy that's really good at execution, but he can't carry on a conversation with someone. So this goes on and on. And it's not, you know, it's generally, it's not always as extreme as that, like a person, like, oh, they are really good socially, but they're terrible fall through.

It's normally not an extreme like that, but they'll have certain strengths. certain weaknesses. They'll have certain deficiencies and certain shortfalls. And so what we have to do, well, we have to remember. And by the way, we all have our own shortfalls and deficiencies. But as leaders, instead of looking at them and saying, oh, you don't want to get promoted, you're not a good person. Instead of judging them or saying, oh, you're not good at briefing Dave, you're a terrible person. No, no, no. Instead of judging them, I said, oh, okay. Dave's really good at meeting and greeting people, really bad at follow-up. Okay, cool. I'm going to put someone on his team that's really good at follow-up. Or Dave's really good at follow-up, but he's not good at talking to people.

Okay, I'm going to give him someone on his team. That's really good at communication. And we fill the voids and we counter the deficiencies so that we can have the best possible team. And by the way, this applies to not just to work. This applies to life as well because You know, I look, my wife of course is 100% perfect, right? And I know your wife is 100% perfect. But let's say for instance, hypothetically you had a wife that wasn't 100% perfect. Maybe she had some shortfalls. And if that happens, what are you going to do about it?

Well, I hope what you do is instead of focusing on those shortfalls and pointing them out all the time, I hope you just fill in the gaps. And you know what? Your kids are not going to be. perfect. Your kids are going to have deficiencies. They're not, they're going to be, some things that you think, what are you, what could you, why can't you do this better? And instead of focusing on those things, well, you can try and, uh, strengthen those areas up, bolster those areas if you can. Like, oh, they're not doing that great academically. Maybe you

can get them a tutor, but you can try and help them out. But to say, oh, the kid's never going to do anything good. It's like wrong, wrong call. So don't focus on those things. Help them out. build your team and support each other, compliment each other, and everything will end up much, much better. And that's what we got. And if you want to dig any deeper onto these aspects of leadership in any arena, whether that's your home, whether that's your work, your community, you can join us. Or actually, you can go to Extreme Ownership.com.

We have an online training academy at Extreme Ownership.com. and we solve problems through leadership. We teach all these different skills there. We also have our leadership consultancy, which is echelonfront.com. We can come inside your organization and we can help you with your leadership scenarios. And when you have problems inside your organization,

they're leadership problems. We can help you sort those out. We're in a bunch of books about leadership as well. And, well, you can check them out. We also have joccofuel.com. jocco store.com and origin usa.com for other other little things that we have happening and that's all we got for now so thanks for listening to the debrief now go lead this is dave and jocco out