Jocko Podcast - The Debrief w/ Jocko and Dave Berke: Subordinate's Disrespectful Resistance To Your Plan

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

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This is the Jocco debrief podcast, episode 30 with Dave Burke and me, Jocko Willink. We have a leadership consulting company. It's called Eshalam Front. And at Eshalon Front, we debrief with each other when we work with clients, when we run into a problem or we find a solution. We debrief so that we can all learn. And so everyone else on the team can learn. And we thought about maybe sharing that with everyone. So we've been doing these debrief podcasts.

And just FYI, the names, the industries, and the situations that we're talking about, we modify them so that we protect our clients. But the leadership issues are the same. So Dave, let's do a little debrief. What do we got going on? Your subordinates resistance to your plan is not disrespectful. Actually, it may be the exact opposite of that. Wait a second. You're saying if I tell my.

subordinate a plan and they they they show me resistance to the plan that I came up with that's not just disrespect that they shouldn't get smashed for their for their behavior yeah compliance is not our goal here yeah okay but yeah that's the scenario so this is literally the situation and that you just described so we've got a manager charge of a team he's in they do a morning meeting just pretty standard and in that meeting it's a chance to run through all the different statuses of each project and work and put out word This is what's going on. This is a situation.

This is what we're doing. And this guy comes to me and says, hey, I want to talk about this meeting. This meeting has become, over time, it's become, things are getting disruptive in the meeting. And so the way he's describing it is he gets frustrated because he puts out word

and a few of his team members appear to be questioning his plan, meaning they're questioning his plan. And his view on that is, hey, this is disrespectful, especially when it's in public. And so I'm talking like, what does it look like? What does that sound like?

and they're showing disrespect because they're suggesting different ways to do the project or different ways to get things done on that day. And lately it's gotten pretty bad. It's actually gotten into, they're bordering into like yelling matches, people talking over each other, which there's obviously way more productive ways to have that, have those conversations.

Just FYI to everyone. If you're having a meeting and people are yelling at each other, we're not doing a good job. No. But it's evolved. into that. So it didn't just start with just a full, you know, throw argument. And it's not too much different. We did a podcast a while ago about a foreman who's like, I just want my people to listen, that concept of as I'm the leader, I just want

my people to listen. And of course, when we disagree, I actually want it to be respectful. I don't want to get in a shouting match. I don't want to be talking over everybody. I do want it to be productive. But the disruption part of it is really a symptom of something else or a way to look at it so we don't get to a place. If you're running a team and you're some pushback. The first time you're getting pushback is very unlikely they're yelling at you or you're getting into a big argument or people are taking sides. It might be the first time you say something and you get that pushback. How you react to that initial resistance is going to decide what ends up happening with a team over time. So you've got to make an example out of someone.

You could do that. And really the biggest thing here is if you think about it in a leadership role, what is- Just FYI-I-I was kidding. If you're listening and you're like, oh cool, Jocka said make an example to someone that puts up any resistance. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. In fact, you in that position, that leadership position, you have, you get to decide in your

own mind what's really happening there. You have all the control over how you want to react to this person's resistance. Meaning if I say something and you're like, hey, I disagree with you. I get to decide how I react to that. I don't have to just not appreciate your resistance and start smashing at you. I can listen. And so we talked about some reasons. All right, why would somebody push back?

Why would someone disagree with what you're saying we should do? What are some reasons why they would do that? And the most obvious one that maybe the most overlooked one is that they care. They care because if you're telling me to do something and I just, I don't care about this job. I don't care about you. I don't care about the project. How much resistance I'm going to give you if you tell me to do something? And I don't care.

I'm not going to care at all. I'm just like, whatever. I might not even acknowledge it. I'll just stare at you. and when the meeting's over, I'll just go out and do whatever I want. So just the fact that I'm going to get a little pushback is like, oh, this person cares. He has an idea. There's a thought in this guy's mind.

He's been thinking about it. He knows what's coming to this meeting. He knows what's going on with the project. He's been on site. He's got thoughts in his mind that he wants to get out. They might know something that you don't know, especially if you're the manager. And what you're really doing is talking about the status of a project in six different locations. And you're not actually on site.

And so as I give you guidance on how I want this done, you may actually know something about that project that I don't know. Another one is that their plan actually might be better than yours. You might actually have a better plan than me because you care, you've been thinking about it, you've got these details. And the one that I think is really central to this

is when somebody is talking back, resisting, disagreeing, or really just has anything to say, sometimes what they want more than anything is they just want you to listen to them. They wanna just be heard. They got thoughts, they got ideas. And all of those are ways to look at this. Rather than it's disrespectful, it's, oh, this guy's got something on his mind.

This guy wants to be heard. This guy has some thoughts. And just seeing it is a huge difference maker in how these conversations go. There's also some less positive reasons why people chime in in a meeting, right? Number one is they have an ego. So you're in a meeting, you're putting out the word, and Fred in the back over there, he's been doing this for longer than you,

he should have been promoted instead of you, he has more experience than you, he went to the school that you didn't go to, so he's got a bunch of reasons, right? And so he's gonna chime in because he wants everyone to know that he has a different view than you. And there's, like you said,

there's a decent chance that his view is better than yours, maybe worse than yours, It doesn't really even matter. Yeah. Again, so now if it's his ego that's driving this behavior, does your reaction, should your reaction change? You know, if I got you, Dave, and I'm putting out the plan, hey, for Project Alpha, we want to take care of these things in this sequence,

and you go, no, we shouldn't do that. And I can tell it's just your ego. So what should I do? Should I, since I know what's your ego, should I try and smash your ego? Like, it's the same solution. It's the same solution. If someone wants to talk, listen. If someone wants to argue, listen.

If someone wants to present a counter idea, listen. If you can listen to what they're saying. And by the way, if you can go one step further than listen and actually proactively say to yourself, you know what, Dave is speaking. I want to take his input and make it the central part of this plan. That's my goal. That's my goal. Look, are there people that just chime in all the time and they say, dumb stuff. Yep, there's there there are. Also, if you're a person that's in a meeting,

try and keep your mouth shut. Like, you don't need to be heard. You really, there's a good chance you don't need to say anything in a meeting. My default in a meeting is to try not to open my mouth. That's what I'm going to try and do. Yeah. So just remember that when someone does chime in, look, they've got an ego. They want to be heard. And the response to that is the same thing as the response to someone that you think actually genuinely cares. It doesn't really matter. Whether they really truly deeply care or that's just their ego, I still need to handle it the same way, which is say, hey, Dave, go ahead. Hold on. I see you kind of got a look on your face like this isn't going to work too well. How do you think we should do this? Does that make me look weak?

Nope. Doesn't make me look weak at all. It actually makes me look strong because I'm not intimidated by the fact that someone on my team might have a little better idea of how to do this since they're actually on the ground doing the job and I've been sitting in the office for the past three weeks in air conditioning looking at future budgets for 2029 it's no big deal that I don't fully comprehend what they're doing on the front lines so that's okay so for me actually not only is someone resisting my plan a it's not a disrespect to me it's actually respect it's actually means we have a good relationships it actually means that they recognize that I'm a good leader that I listen to what they have to say.

There's a million ways that I view resistance to my plan as a positive thing. By the way, I want someone to try and punch holes in my plan because I don't want the competitor do it to do that. I don't want the enemy to do that. I don't want the weather to do that. I don't want the market to do that. The market will punch holes in your plan. The market will find those holes.

The enemy will find the holes in your plan. Your competitor will find your holes in your plan. So I don't want the market, the competition. The enemy, I don't want them to find the holes in my plan. I want the people in the meeting with me that are on my team to tell me where there's holes in my plan or to tell me a better way to get something done. So here's another point to this. When you're presenting things instead of presenting them with your ego as if they are the infallible plan don't present things like that. Present them as what they truly are, which they are your ideas and your guesses about the best way to get something done. And that means when, look, if I roll into a meeting and I say, all right, I came up with a plan, I did the research, here's how this, here's a little word, here's how this needs to be executed.

Right there, I already boxed myself in a little bit. Because you know what? It doesn't need to be executed that way. There's 87 different ways that this could be executed. Some more efficient than others depending on the variables that come into play. Because you and I can, you and I can try and figure out the best way to approach a client. but we don't even know what the client's budget is. So if you're saying we should set up a brief for them or set up a program for them

that's going to cost them $4 million. And I say, no way, we should do a program that's only going to cost $500,000 so we can definitely get a minute. We don't even know what their budget is. So we can have an argument about something in the future that we know nothing about. So why do that? Why would I go and said, we need to do a $500,000 program? so that they get involved with us.

Why would I say that? Instead of saying, hey, here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking it would be good for us to do at least a few engagements with this client. And I'm thinking a lower price point would be good, maybe something like around, you know, half a million just to get him involved. And then Dave says, well, you know what Jock was thinking about that. But we pulled some research. These guys, their stock's gone up 7%. They're doing really well.

They're very, very profitable. and they want to expand even more. So they got cash. Why don't we present them with a bigger program that is going to be more expensive for them, but if they're going to get more out of it? So all of a sudden, what are we doing? We're actually having a conversation like two human beings

that are trying to figure out the best solution to the problem. So set yourself up correctly by not mandating things, by not imposing things, and by not using words that imply a mandate, because those are going to hurt you. Don't speak that way. Learn not to speak that way. Get rid of those habits. Oh, by the way, also, if you, if Dave, if you work for me and you're used to me saying, hey, I think we should do this and you push back and we come up with a better solution. I say, hey, this is what I'm thinking and you

listen to me. And then all of a sudden, you know, in nine months down the road, we've got a critical emergency situation. And I look and you say, Dave, we need to do this right now. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I'm probably going to get on board because. I can't remember the last time you said that to me. Yeah. So you're developing, you don't want to be the kid that cried wolf, right? The sheep herder that cried wolf. And every time, this is what we need to do, this is what we need to do, this is what we need to do.

I probably say we need to do something in any of my companies, like maybe two, three times a year combined. Combined. Most of the time, it's just, hey, I've got an idea. I got ideas. You got ideas? You're close to a problem. Hey, sometimes, you know, we talk about you having. this solution Dave so you might have the solution and oftentimes we give the

person in the field the nod for having the solution why because they're closer with the problem guess what what happens sometimes sometimes you're so close to the problem that you can't yeah I don't see the big picture you don't see the big picture so sometimes so that's why neither one of us should be proposing our thoughts as if they are the 100% solution the 100% solution doesn't exist so why are we trying to speak that way we're trying not to speak that way So people are resisting you. Don't burn any leadership capital fighting them.

Instead, earn leadership capital by listening to what they have their say and trying to incorporate their ideas into your world. That's what I'm thinking. Which is really the point of a meeting, right? Like, if I didn't sit down with my team, get caught up on what's going on, talk about what things need to get done at what timelines or whatever is the next steps in the project. The objective that I have shouldn't be to tell you what I need you to get done. It's, hey, what are what's going on and what's happening? And in fact, like the ultimate component of having an interaction with another person, the goal would be to listen as much as possible to figure out what you don't know

so you can actually, in your role, give them what they need or help them. And all of that is the mindset. And it really, I think you brought it back to the very beginning, which is exactly right, is it really boils down to when you talk about your ego is when you put, How do I react to that? I have two choices. I can go, you're my subordinate. Don't be disrespectful.

You're here to listen to me. I don't like what you have to say or I can go, oh, jaccom might know something I don't know. He's got something on his mind. And if I take it in the best possible way and do what you said, which seems so easy, and yet we know it's so hard to go, oh, hang on. I can tell your body language, show me, or you got to come, what am I missing? And you go, well, actually, Dave, you're missing A, B, and C. And I go, oh, thanks.

That's awesome. What are the chances that over time your team meetings are going to devolve into shouting matches and arguing matches? It's not going to happen. And so when I look at this, like it's become disrespectful, this environment that's been created is, well, let's think about why that is. And if your only conclusion is, while they're talking over me, they're disrespectful, they don't listen to what I have to say, it's not too hard to come back to the conclusion of how

do we get to that point? And the way you get to that point is, I don't listen to you, I don't respect what you have to say. on your mind and if I happen to be dealing with someone else who has an ego which is basically guaranteed what's going to end up happening is we will go to war in some variety now sometimes that ends up being you just fully shut down oh cool you don't want to hear what I've say great now I've got someone on my team that has no interest in offering his ideas telling what's going on in any way you you play that out I'm losing or I could say hey you know what the whole point of this is

to figure out what's going on what do you need how I can help you that means I'm going to spend most of my time listening and if I I am going to spend most of my time listening, how much arguing is there going to be? Not that much. So for the past couple of years, we've been talking about building relationships. We've been talking about how you build a relationship,

trust, listen, respect, influence, and care. And if you want someone to respect you, you need to give them respect. If you want someone to trust them, you need to give them trust. If you want someone to listen to them to you, you need to listen to them. So if you want to build a relationship,

you've got to give those things. So in the other direction, is exactly what is occurring. You take that in the other direction and you get an escalation. There's an escalation, a negative escalation or an escalation of negativity. Meaning, if you treat me with a little bit of disrespect, what do I do? I get a little bit more disrespectful of you. If you won't listen to me, what does that mean? I'm not going to listen to you even more. If you clearly don't trust me, I'm not going to trust you. And what we end up with is screaming matches.

That's how this gets there. And all one person has to do is put their ego in check. And when Dave says, you know, why are you even in charge? So he disrespects me in front of everybody. And if my response is, well, obviously, because they pick someone that could do the job, not like you. So I just escalated his disrespect with my own. But if Dave says to me disrespectfully, Why do you even have that position?

And I say, you know, sometimes I ask myself the same question. Because talking to people like you and the team, I know I'm, I definitely have a lot to learn. And that's why we're here. And that's why I'm here. That's why I'm listening to what you have to say. What does that do? What does that do? There's very few people, look, if you have somebody that's sort of a sociopathic bully, they're going to go harder and do you have to put them in check?

Yeah. That's very rare. I would probably say I worked with do this off the top of my head I haven't done any deep thought about it I bet I worked with between five and no between four and seven legitimate like bullies where if somebody disrespected them they were going to lose their minds and and annihilate that person verbally until it's over right most of the people, most people, if they're disrespected or if they get disrespected and they de-escalate, most people will recognize that they're the bully if they escalate more and they're going to be

in a bad spot. So de-escalation is so critical and you can only de-escalate if you can put your ego in check. And by the way, when you put your ego in check, you don't look, you don't look weaker, you look stronger. When we're in a meeting, Dave and I are meeting, and I'm the boss, and Dave says, you shouldn't even have this job. And I say, you know what? Sometimes I completely agree, Dave. I wonder why they promoted me.

When I say, what does the room think? Does the room think, ooh, he got Jocko? No, the room thinks, man, Dave's insecure. Man, Dave, Dave's jealous. Dave really thinks he belongs or his ego's big. Whereas if I go, what are you talking about? And if I go back at you, everybody goes, oh, looks like Jocco's, you know, He's trying to protect his in struck a nerve

And then they actually think He knows he doesn't belong here And that so this is all things They're very Easy to sit here and talk about Boy does it sting when someone comes at you And boy is it hard to take that ego And put it in check

And be like, okay, let me listen to what they have to say And then we'll go forward Very very, very seldom Do you have to check a person And they're normally like psychos you know, they've lost their minds. And most people, they'll see that. Yeah.

When you put a, if you can put your ego in check, support to your ego and listen to what someone has to say, while someone else is talking and running your mouth, people will be listening that going, oh yeah, I can see what's going on here. This person's lost their mind. I mean, it's as simple as that, man. You just described it extremely well.

When we talk about this with the clients all the time, it is what we call the reciprocal nature of a relationship. If I treat you with respect, I'm going to get that in return. If I listen to you, I'm going to get that in return. And just like you described, if I do the opposite, I'm going to get the exact same thing in return. What I give you is what I'm going to get over time. So if you've got a bunch of people that are screaming and shouting and yelling at each other,

take a little step back and think about how do we get to that point. And next time, be open to that criticism, be open to that feedback. Invite it, welcome it. You don't look weak. You don't like a bad boss or like you don't know what's going on. You look like you care and are interested in trying to help them. And if you do that enough and if the nature of the environment becomes, I am here to listen to what you have to say,

then the few times that I do decide I need to talk, what I'm going to again return is exactly what you described as people are going to listen to me too. One of the things I wanted to talk about today, it's something that you and I have been discussing a little bit. Well, part of it. So it's the idea of reframing a situation, reframing your perspective. Look, when you're doing jihitsu,

if you're doing something that's not, working don't keep doing it right try something new and if you're doing something in life and it's not working don't keep doing it do something new hey this is real obvious sitting here to tell people to look at things a different way to find a new perspective I think and I use this term reframing I know you and I talked about it in air-to-air combat you guys call it redefining the fight yes so here a conclusion that I came to is that you should we should as people reframe everything reframe everything and I'll tell you why whether things are working or not I recommend

you still try and look at it through a different lens you still try and reframe it and see it from a different perspective and it's real obvious you know if you're looking at a at a target if you're in in the military and you're looking at a target and you can't quite figure out a good way to hit the target or to assault the target okay reframe it that's real obvious if if things aren't working you know between your boss or your you and your boss or you and your peers or you and one of your subordinates if things aren't working real obvious like reframing it here's the thing if things are working with you and your boss and you and your employee still reframe it still

reframe it if if you're looking at a target and you're and there's a real obvious way to hit it still reframe it still think about it still figure out a new way to do things or a different approach to things whether they're working or not and here's why don't wait to learn how to reframe things until something's not working don't wait for that to happen wait don't wait until there's a bunch of pressure don't wait until Dave's mad at me that I got to reframe it don't wait until I'm looking at a target I can't figure out how to hit it don't look until the the market is starting to tank and I need to try and now reframe it no just reframe things just start reframing things everything that you do try and reframe it try and

take a different look at things. Try and think about what the other person sees. Right? So when you go and tell your employees about something and they're super happy and excited, don't just go cool. I did a great job and walk away. Nope.

Reframe it and say, I wonder why they were so excited about that. What did they see? What did I miss? When you have a positive outcome with a target that you assaulted and you get done, be like, okay, that worked well.

How else could we have done it? that way you're ready when you need to reframe something and you're in the habit of it. So like, I mean, these are real basic examples, but at Origin USA, we were selling jiu jih Tis. We're doing everything to make the best jiu jih Tis, making America, all these things. Well, how big is that market? How big is it? There's a very limited number of people that train jiu jih Tzu with the ghee. So the reframing was, wait a second.

I mean, I was sitting in an airport and I called Pete because I was sitting in an airport. I'm watching people walk by and everyone, you know, or whatever, 94% of the people are wearing jeans. And I called Pete and I said, hey, how many people do you know that do Jiu-Jitsu? And he says, I don't know, like 40? And I said, cool, how many people do you know that wear jeans? He said everyone. I was like, why don't we make jeans? It's that very simple reframing.

And the same thing happened when COVID hit, right? When COVID hit, we were making, we make Jiu-Jitsu rash guards. Well, every Jiu-Jitsu Academy in the country shut down. What are we going to make now? Well, this whole thing with face cloth coverings, we didn't know what the deal was, but we knew that people, there was a high demand signal. We had companies that we knew could not reopen until everyone had a cloth face covering. Okay, guess what we did. Pivoted and started making those things.

Acheon front, same thing. When COVID hit, we were doing, before. Before COVID hit, we did 99% of our engagements face to face. When Eschalon Front, when COVID hit, it was like, oh, what are we going to do? Put plexiglass boxes around our speakers? No, we're going to start doing virtual stuff. But it was just, okay, reframe, what can we do different? How can we look at this in a different way?

But here's the thing. So those are like real obvious examples. What about when you get asked a question? And here's a basic question that we get asked that Eschleon Front a lot. The question is, how do I get the team to buy into the platform? plan. And the direct answer to that is, and it's a very good answer. There's a whole like conversation to have around this is how do you get the team to buy into the plan? Oh, make sure they understand the why. Make sure they understand how it benefits the company strategically.

Make sure that they then understand how the company benefiting strategically will benefit them. And you have this whole thread of why. So that's how you can get the team to buy into the plan. And that's great. It's a great answer. If you reframe that and you look at it from a different angle, how do you get the team to buy into a plan? You let them come up with the plan. Boom. You just, you just assaulted this question and this problem from a completely different angle. So I, you know, if someone is talking to me about a protocol, like we need, we should change the protocol. Instead of saying, yes, we should change the protocol or no, we shouldn't change the protocol, you can reframe that question by saying, well, what are we trying to

accomplish. It's so once those words come out of your mouth everyone goes oh yeah well of course well you know it seems like a real obvious question but no one was asking it. They were asking a yes or no question to something that's there's very few things that are yes or no questions. We're at battlefield. E.F. Battlefield up at Gettysburg. There's this whole scenario that unfolds where generally has a plan to move to the South and basically have Longstreet do a big flanking maneuver on the Union forces. And Longstreet doesn't really agree with the plan. And so he just kind of slow rolls the whole thing.

And it's like, well, and it's going to take a while. And I'm not sure I agree. And they go back and forth. And it takes hours and hours and hours. And so we started asking this question. What should he have done? Should Longstreet have just gone? Or should Longstreet or should generally have just fired him or should he have just ordered him to go?

Like, which one is it? Should he have just fired him? And then there's a whole debate you can have. Well, if he fired him or should he just ordered him to go and he can say no? And then he's basically fine. So they turn this thing into a yes or no question. And I was actually there with JD. J.D.'s awesome.

And I said, well, I'll tell you what I would have done. So on Longstreet. I don't really like the plan. What am I going to do? Well, hey boss, cool, got it. I'm going to take an iterative step. And I'm going to say, we'll move down south and start getting in position. What's going to happen when we start to move down south and get positioned?

We're going to gather more information. And maybe the information is, oh, generally came up with a pretty good plan. And I think we'd be able to sweep up the union flank over here. Cool. Or maybe we see that the union flank is very strong or maybe we see that there's a very defendable position. So we can take iterative steps to figure out what we should do. So you take something that is a yes or no answer and you reframe it to say, okay, what are we trying to accomplish?

What other information can we gather? And really, iterative decision making is a great way of reframing things. It's a great way of reframing things. Should we go into that market area? Yes or no? Well, I'm not really sure. How about we just make a small investment into that market area? We don't have to go in there 100%.

We don't have to go in there zero percent. We can go in there 10%. But people will frame questions and thoughts in a way that they're binary and very few things are. So they make that mistake. And it's because people have, they develop that habit. They develop the habit of seeing things binary. Yes or no. On or off.

go or no go. We teach that in the military. Go or no go. That's something we teach. Go or no go. That's it. There's no go or possibly move to a little closer staging area, possibly see what other intel.

You think there's all these iterative steps. And one of the things that made me think about this is another thing that we teach at Eshlawn Front is don't wait until you have an emergency to develop relationships. Right? I don't want to call Dave. You know, Dave is.

This is my neighbor. He moves in next to me. And the first time I go visit him is when, you know, I've got a freaking fire. I don't want that. That's not cool. I want to build a relationship beforehand. Same thing at work. You know, you don't want the first time you call the supply division to be like,

our stuff showed up late. We need it now. You don't want that to be the first call. You want to have a bunch of calls already where you have a good relationship with them. So that's kind of what we need to do. We teach to build the relationship. We also teach to train to be prepared for contingencies,

to rehearse contingencies before they happen. We train to fight before a fight. You train jujitsu, so if someone attacks you, you can handle yourself. You don't try and learn while it's happening. We practice things daily so that they become a habit. And if we have good habits, then we will execute properly. The saying we fall to the level.

We don't rise to the, we don't rise to the occasion. We fall to the level of our training. And when we have habits and we have routines, we have patterns that we follow, it's very difficult to break them under stress. So if you've programmed yourself to think in a binary mode, yes or no. and even worse than a binary mode is a unilateral mode, which is what most people do. Most people, it's a unilateral thought process, which the perspective that I'm thinking of is mine. That's it.

That's the only consideration that I'm taking is my perspective, what I see, what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling. That's what my decisions are based on. And so if you think that in a moment of stress, when the market, When an employee is mad, when there's an emergency situation, if you think at that moment, you're then going to be able to take a step back, detach, and reframe a scenario, it's going to be very difficult for you. So that's my point in saying all this. You have to practice detaching. You have to practice reframing and redefining, and you need to practice it with everything that you do and everything that you say.

Now, this doesn't mean that you have to do it. It doesn't mean that every time something happens, you reframe it and approach it from a different way. Because sometimes the forward assault is fine. The frontal assault is okay. Sometimes that's fine. I'm not saying that you need to, every argument that you have or every disagreement that you have, you try and reframe it in such a way that it approaches it from a totally different direction. I'm not saying that you have to proceed with this every time,

but you should think through it. You should do the mental exercise. You should do the mental exercise all the time with everything. And by the way, this isn't just being contrarian. Because contrarian is, this is not, what I'm talking about is not a contrarian viewpoint. That's not what I'm talking about. A contrary viewpoint is actually very simple to have.

It's just the opposite of what, you know, Dave says we should attack from the north. I say, no, we should attack from the south. There's no reasoning behind it. It's just a contrarian view. And I get it. Can you use it? Is it an attempt to reframe?

It might be. But it's really not a reframing complete. It's more just, oh, this is the opposite of what you're saying as of what I'm going to say. That's not, it doesn't offer us anything new. It doesn't offer us anything unknown. We already know what the opposite is. We know that. We want to know a totally different perspective.

We want to look at something in a completely new way. An unseen, that's what it is, it's an unseen angle, something that you don't see. And in order to get good at seeing it, you have to practice. You have to practice. And if you practice and you come up with that mindset, it'll be a lot more prevalent when you need it.

I wrote down open mind as you're doing this. And yeah, we've said that a lot and connect into all the things you're saying. But I think there's a point for me, I would emphasize in my own head too. I think sometimes you associate keeping an open mind. Oh, it ran into a problem. The thing I had in my mind didn't work that well. Or my plan ran into some friction. I need to keep an open mind.

That actually makes sense. But what if my plan was just like masterful? Worked exactly the way that I wanted. I got the exact outcome that I needed. And really what you're saying is still keep an open mind. And if you can build the habit of when things are going well, when you're succeeding, when you're dominating to still have an open mind,

that is a great way of thinking about how to create that habit by which you always have an open mind. Yeah, it makes sense. If I'm not doing well, I should have an open mind. Yeah, that makes sense. But it doesn't seem to be as intuitive like, oh, when things are going perfectly, keep an open mind. When that assault work exactly the way you want,

still keep an open mind. When your plan was executed exactly how you visioned it, keep an open mind. So that phrase, keep an open mind to redefine and be willing to reframe things, that applies all the time. Not just when you're struggling, when things aren't going well,

even when it's like that was exactly how I thought it was going to go. We still need to look for a better way, a different way, a more effective way because the world around us is going to change. It's not always going to work the way that it did. So keep an open mind. Yeah. If you don't have that habit,

you'll be even more locked in when things are going wrong. You'll be even more target fixated on the one solution that you came up with, and you can be beating your head into a wall. Totally. So don't let that happen, everybody. With that, good place to stop. If you want to hear more about leadership in any arena, you can join Dave, me, the rest of the Escalonfront team.

Extreme Ownership Academy, to where we solve problems through leadership, go to Extreme Ownership.com. We also have a whole consulting company. which is where these are the problems that we're referencing. We help organizations of every size solve their problems through leadership. Go to ashlandfront.com. If you want some of that. Also, a bunch of books about leadership that I've written, have some other podcasts. And if you want to support any of these things, you can go to jocco store.com,

Eshlanfront.com, originusa.com or jacofuel.com. And get some good stuff for your life. And with that, thanks for listening to Us Debrief. Now go lead. This is Dave and Jocko out.