Jocko Podcast - The Debrief w/ Jocko and Leif Babin #10

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

What to do when the boss wants feedback, but when you give it to him, he DOESN'T LIKE IT.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko debrief podcast, episode 10 with Laif Babin and me, Jocko Willink. Now, I got hit up on Twitter about, we, someone had listened to the debrief and we talk about things that happened at Echelon Front or on EF online and someone said, oh, they must be violating some kind of confidentiality agreements with their clients to be telling these stories. Here's the deal. The stories that we tell on this debrief podcast are, we change them so that they are completely unrecognizable, even to the client that the event is about. They're based, look, we change.

It's kind of like what we did for extreme ownership. We change things so much to tell the story. No one can recognize who the client was or what the client was, but the principle, the point of the principle gets made. And so that's the same thing we do here. So we consider our client information top secret. With that, Laif, let's debrief. What do you got?

Let's get some here. All right. So the first leader we're working with here, this question was the boss was asking for feedback. They have a boss that was asked for feedback. And when the leader gives them feedback, they don't like it. And so the question from this leader was, hey, what do I do? I mean, they're asking for feedback and then they don't want to listen to that feedback. And then they just push back and they make excuses about it.

So they don't really want feedback at all. You know, so how do I deal with that? That's, that was the question. And so the first thing I had to ask was, okay, well, how are you giving that feedback? And of course, as we started digging into it, you know, the feedback is like, oh, you, you want some feedback from me? let me tell you how screwed up you are. And, you know, so, and that's something that I think oftentimes where even if people mean something that's constructive, they just, they have a hard time seeing it from someone else's perspective. And you talk about this all the time.

No one likes feedback. No one likes to hear. We even do this. We give presentations, you know, we run workshops and training. And then we get, we say, okay, how could we do it better? And the moment people are like, you know what, you know, if you're to focus on this, I can feel myself. started like bristling against that feedback. I think it's just human nature.

Everybody falls into that. So what I had to help this leader understand was like, hey, think about it from your boss's perspective. Like what, and what are you actually providing feedback on? Like how are you providing that feedback? And he was like, well, I'm doing it a professional matter. So we went back and forth on that a little bit.

And so what I actually had to finally get across to him was like, okay, if you're doing it, if you're giving constructive feedback that's valuable to the team and you're doing it effectively, you're not going to get pushback from that. And that's the test for whether or not you're doing that right. So we finally had to get them to take some extreme ownership of, okay, I need to be more cognizant of my tone,

of the things that I'm actually pushing back on, are they really important? And then maybe I need a little indirect approach instead of that direct approach of just being brutally honest. But they asked me for feedback. When people ask you for feedback, they're lying. You know what they're doing? When somebody asks you for feedback,

you know what they're doing? They're fishing for a compliment. That's what they're doing. They don't want to improve. They've got their reedle and rod out and they got a big worm and the worm says, hey, can you give me some feedback? They want you to say, that I was blown away, especially your boss. Your boss just wants to hear how great they did.

So just keep that in mind when that happens. Then you know it's a good thing and we do this a lot of Eschlam Front. I don't know if you did it in this particular case, but all the time I'll say, okay, cool, now you understand what I'm talking about and they say, yeah, no, I'll do it next time. You take cool, let's roll play. I'm your boss. Give me some feedback.

And they, you know, it might take them two or three tries before they start doing it in an indirect way that's not going to be offensive. And it's not easy to do. But it's impossible to do if you don't get the right mindset. If you don't, if your mindset is, oh, Leif just asked me for feedback. Great. Now I can unload on him. It's like, hmm, probably not the best attitude to go into this thing with. I wrote about this in leadership strategy and tactics.

And it's just talking about basically it was it was talking there's a whole thing about how to how to give the truth tactfully. There's a whole section on that this is like Just talking about weak bosses weak bosses or indecisive bosses how do you handle them and and I wrote be cautious Of course right be cautious as with micromanaging bosses or indecisive boss with a weak boss you have to be careful when you step up to lead even the feeblest and weakest of bosses have egos, and if you offend them, they may lash out. You could translate that right to even when somebody asks for feedback, they can get offended and lash out. So don't be offensive or overly assertive when you start to do this. Use soft language and frame things in a way that it does not diminish the boss's ego,

but actually boosts it. Quote, here's some examples. Hey boss, I know you have a lot going on, so I was thinking it might be helpful if I jumped in on this project over here to move forward with it. Would that be all right? Hey boss, I'm sorry for being slow on the uptake, but I just want to make sure I fully understand your vision. Do I have it right when I say, you know, whatever?

Hey, boss, I'm trying to step up my game. Would you mind if I took a crack at planning this next project so I can get some experience? Like all those are ways of me saying, hey, I'll run this for you. You know, instead of saying, hey, boss, you know what? I think I could do this better than you. Why don't you let me handle it? What's that going to do? It's going to offend somebody.

Well, I cut you off. What were you going to say? Now, I was just going to echo what you were talking about. about with role playing. You and Dave have talked about that, you know, on the debrief podcast here extensively about how effective that is and Dave does an awesome job of that, of role playing this because it's, I think a lot of times it takes that roleplay to realize like how you're actually being interpreted, you know, when you're like, okay, let's rollplay that. And when someone realizes that how they're like, okay, how is the boss going to proceed that?

And you, they get to detach from it. They get to analyze it. And then they realize, okay, that's a problem. But what you just, those examples you just laid out there really powerful because you want it to be the boss's idea. If it's the boss's idea, that's the best case scenario for you. Hey, you know, not like, oh, Leif came in with feedback and told us we sucked and we needed to fix this. And we need to, I actually want, if you're my boss and you're asked for feedback and I want to, I want to, I want to lay it up there for it to be your idea. You're running with it. And I was, that's a great, that's a great idea, boss.

I'll go make it happen. Good call. I don't care because I want the team to win and I want to. to be able to move forward together. And when it comes, so if it comes to criticism, if I wanna give you criticism, if you get done with your brief, you get done explaining your plan to me,

or you get done explaining your plan to the team, and then you pull me aside afterward, and you say, hey, Jocko, you got any feedback? You know, how was that brief? And I go, well, actually, you went over everything too quick and no one could follow it, right? What are you gonna do? You're gonna get defensive.

At best, you're gonna get defensive. At worst, you're gonna to see. say, you know, that's your, because you're stupid. So instead, I say, I take that away from them. I say, you know what, Leif, as far as I could tell it was solid, I'll tell you what, though, I know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. And for me, I need to review it because it was just, it was a little bit too much information for me too fast.

I apologize for, like, not following everything. I'll try and take better notes next time so I can ask some more specific questions, but it was hard for me to fall on. I'm sorry, right? So now I'm taking ownership for being stupid, but I'm, actually hinting to you that maybe it's a good idea to slow down a little bit. Again, would it be in an ideal world? Great for me just to be direct and say, oh, you want some feedback?

Cool. You go too fast and no one understands what you're talking about. That would be great if it didn't offend you and now you got mad. So here's another thing. I talk a lot about understanding other people's perspectives, right? I want to know what someone's perspective is so I can see it from their view. There's one more thing to add to that. And lately, I've been talking a lot about the power of a story.

And then Daryl and I did a podcast about how people formulate stories to exist in the world. They actually put together in their minds a story that is them. So if I'm dealing with you, Laif, I don't just want to know what your perspective is. I don't want to just understand your perspective. I want to know what your story is. And I want to think about this, not just from the perspective of this moment, but from the perspective of your whole story. You ever hear somebody and you meet somebody and you know, you and I are, we meet somebody.

And it's somebody that I knew. And, you know, the guy walks away, you know, say, hi, how you doing? Oh, good to meet you. And then he walks away and you might say to me, what's that guy's story, right? That's a real question. It's a real question. What's that guy's story? So when you're dealing with your boss, don't just think, oh, I want to understand their perspective in this moment.

Think to yourself, I want to understand their perspective and their story. How they get here. Are they insecure about their leadership position? Are they overconfident about it? What is it? What's the story? And then apply that to their perspective and then apply those things to how you interact with them. I think if you understand that at a deep level,

you can predict their behavior. Sure. You know, with pretty amazing accuracy. One final thing I'll say about this kind of situation is the, it's really important to prioritize and execute. And this is something I struggle with sometimes when people ask feedback and you're trying to, like, well, you need to do this, you need to do this, you do this.

And it was, it was something JP and I were just talking about with the leader we were working with. You know, and it was like, hey, okay, let's really focus on, okay, what really matters here? And is it that big of a deal? I think a lot of times for folks that get spun up about something if the boss is asking for feedback, like if you're giving feedback to the boss about something that was screwed up, it's something that I learned from you in Tasking of Bruiser,

you didn't push back on anything until it really mattered, which then gave us the leadership capital to be able to do that. And I think so many people don't think strategically when they do that. So they're pushing back on little minuscule things that don't matter at all. So then when they need to push back on something that really matters, It's like, oh, it's just babbing again complaining about something. And they're not even really accepting that feedback. So they don't take that on board.

I think it's sound advice to close this one out to say, don't nitpick your damn boss. Check. All right. What's your next scenario? So the next one, we had two different team leaders. Actually, two assistant team leaders on a team. And so the team leader got promoted up the chain.

So two assistant team leaders. One of them had been on the team for many years who had, you know, 12 or 15 years experience on the job. And one of them who'd been on the team for maybe seven or eight years, so about half the experience of the more experienced assistant team leader. And obviously there's now a gap. The team leader got promoted. So who's going to get the promotion?

the most experienced guy expected it was going to happen, and the more junior assisted team leader with half the experience of the, really experienced assisted team leader, the more junior guy got promoted to the team leader position. And so obviously there's a lot of issues with us because clearly it's a big blow to the ego of the individual that expected to be promoted.

And he was a talented guy. He had obviously a lot of experience. and I think it almost caught the other assistant team leader off guard and he said, hey, you know, how do I handle the situation? Because I don't want to lose this. I don't want to lose this assistant team leader. He's a critical member of the team. We need to move forward together.

So what do I do in this situation? And obviously, that's a tough problem to have. You're taking over the situation that now you're stepping into the role. So what does he do? How does he move the team forward? and how does he keep that guy on board to be a part of the team? So what did you tell him? So I told him, I said, well, first of all,

you're going to have to do a little ego massage in a big way, which is the term you use a lot, and I love that term because you've got to massage this guy's ego. He's obviously upset. He's over there thinking, like, that team leader got promoted. That's just wrong. I've got all the experience. So clearly, ego massage by going in there saying,

but also being harmed. Right out of the bat. So to humble himself and do ego massage to say, listen, I don't know why. I don't know why this decision got made that I got promoted. You've obviously got way more experience than me. I was totally surprised by this. It should have been you getting promoted. I don't know why they promoted me.

But I'll tell you one thing, there's no way that I can possibly be successful without your experience. And I'm going to need to lean on you heavily in order to guide this team. So do it, you know, by a little self-deprecating, you know, checking your ego and then going forward to actually do a little ego massage there and just address that, that issue. And that was that was the guidance we gave them. Yeah, yeah. I wrote about this in leadership strategy and tactics. And again, leadership strategy and tactics is like all the questions that I get asked all the time. I finally got sick of answering them all times.

I just wrote them all down. Well, there was a section literally called transitioning from follower or peer. two leader and it covers this exact thing. And I actually go through two scenarios that I went through in a couple of seal platoons where a peer got promoted, not me, but a peer got promoted in two back-to-back seal platoons. One of them, the peers did it well, elevated, stepped up. The other one didn't do it well.

So that's one part. But the other part is literally what you're talking about. There's another section in here called Overcoming a Grudge, which is this exact thing. and you know it's it's you know there are times in your career will you be one promoted into a leadership position and placed above your former peers right this can be challenging but one handled correctly the challenge can be mitigated many ways to some ways to mitigate a bad attitude don't try and force your rank down their throats it's everything you just said tell them you appreciate their experience let them come up with plans and ideas ask them for their input if they come up with a good plan run with it and by the way all these the 12 things that I say to do in page 158 of this book or 157-158, which is like how to take over as a new leader. So these are all things to appreciate and do. And as you mentioned immediately, it comes down to subordinating my ego, elevating your

ego. Let's make this happen. I also say this, but also be advised that some people will be hypersensitive and see you putting them in charge of something as condescending. or as proof that you didn't know or that proof that you don't know what you're doing and that they should have been happened that they should have been promoted so you might have if you just have a horrible attitude and I say hey layf you know why don't you run with this why don't you run this you know you got a lot of experience if you're just a horrible

mindset you could say oh you see jocco doesn't even know what the hell he's doing I should have been the one that should be promoted or you could see it as oh now jocchio thinks he's just going to make me run everything it's like both those are opposite attitudes They're both equally bad. When they're pounding and bad attitude become apparent, recognize that the likely reason they were not promoted is because they likely lack the humility and maturity to be illegal. That's why they didn't get promoted in the first place.

It's because they act like this. If that's the case, continue to be cordial, treat them with respect, try and build a relationship with them, but don't expect any rapid improvement. This will be a long process. You're going to have to be patient. and make sure you don't let them distract you from the mission or from the rest of the team.

It's definitely a challenging situation. Hey, I did it. I mean, I became an officer. I was in the SEAL teams for eight years as an enlisted guy and then became an officer. And all of a sudden, a bunch of guys that were my same rank, all of a sudden I was above them.

And I guess part of the reason why I say it like that is because I didn't really think it was that big of a deal. I knew I had a different job now. My job was a little bit different, but everyone's job on the team is important. So, I think what's interesting, thing about the question is that people don't know what to do. And you obviously laid out, you know, exactly what you need to do in leadership strategy and tactics. But it's something

that people really struggle with. And I think, you know, no one likes to have the hard conversations. And so what's interesting to me and where I've seen this fail drastically, you know, with leaders we worked with is they don't even address it. They just, it's a big elephant in the room. They don't talk about it. Maybe they try to put them in charge. Like when that negative attitude kind of persists is when they, they don't actually, have the conversation and pull the other leader aside and say, hey, I don't know why this

happened. You know, address it and just talk about it because it's always going to be there and it's going to create problems if you don't actually address it. And I think that's one of the times where you know, we talked about indirect approach is great, but you're, we also talk about being default aggressive to our problems and if you ignore problems, they only get worse.

So I think that's one of those things where you, you've got to be, have, take a little direct approach to say, this problem is not going to to get better. This guy's going home over the weekend stewing about this thing. As soon as I can actually reach out to him and connect with him and talk about this, the better it's going to be. I need to do it as soon as I possibly can. And one conversation is certainly probably not going to solve the problem. Yeah. And the dichotomy there is saying, hey, we need to be default aggressive and solving our problems doesn't mean that the tactic or technique that we use to solve the problem

is default aggressive. Just because I say, you know what, I can see Leif's pissed off that I got promoted and he didn't, I need to confront him about it. No, that's not, I don't need to confront him about it. I need to have a conversation about it. I need to, you know, put some feelers out there and see if I can understand what he's mad about, see if this is like, see where this is coming from. It doesn't mean I need to call you up and say, look, I can tell you by your attitude. Yeah, what's your problem. Yeah. Because then that's not at all. It's not helpful. But to say, you know, what you said earlier is an approach. Hey, look, I'm not 100% sure why this decision got made, but it got made.

And listen, I know that you have a ton of experience, more experience than me. And I absolutely would love to get your help and support as we do this. And for me, this doesn't mean anything other than I got a different job now and I'm going to do the best I can. And, you know, something along those lines. It's not an aggressive attack. So it's an aggressive meaning I'm going to go solve the problem, but it's not aggressive meaning I'm just going to be default aggressive and attack you because that is not your first option.

Can it be an option later? Yeah, I mean, if, and you know, this actually... Yeah, I guess a better way to say that is like you're, I'm telling you to be default aggressive in de-escalating the situation. There you go. That's what I mean. Not in confronting and be like, what's your problem? Yeah.

But I'm gonna I'm gonna oh you're storming out of the room. Okay, well let let me it's as soon as I can go intercede and say hey jaco look man I don't know why this happened like I mean default aggressive in de-escalation. Yep that's good. That's good. That's solid and it's great advice to that's what we mean by default aggressive taking action that's going to solve the problem not taking action that's going to escalate the problem and this actually ties pretty well those are you. or two scenarios for my turn you know I got a question the other day and this this really does tie in well I got a question the other day about how to handle insubordination how do I how do I handle insubordination and I think as you as you go to answer that question you actually have to think through some things you have to think about you have to think about this what is insubordination What does that mean? Is it, is it, oh, they're not following my instructions? Is it that they're asking some pointed questions?

Is it some level of sabotage that you can see happening? I think you have to clarify what you mean by insubordination because when we hear the word insubordination, when I hear it, when I hear the word insubordination, what we think of is some. outright mutinous behavior or just defiant rebellion. Right? When you, let me ask you this. When you hear the word insubordination, you're not thinking,

you're thinking something pretty extreme, right? You, CMJ violation? Right. Yeah. This is a major deal. And I think that that type of insubordination doesn't really happen that often. I mean,

it just doesn't really happen that often. I think most of the time when people use the word insubordination, what's really happening is what I said earlier. Maybe, you know, someone's not following instructions exactly. Maybe someone's asking questions in a group, you know, where it's like, why are we doing this? You know, that type of thing. And I don't think that's, I don't think that's insubordination. I think that's resistance.

I think that's what I'm going to call resistance, which I think is a normal thing that's going to happen to you as a leader. There will be resistance from your team. You have to expect it. You have to embrace it. And when I feel that type of resistance, I have to think to myself, guess what? I'm getting this resistance because of me. It's my fault. That's what's actually happening. I haven't explained something correctly. There's some part of this that they don't understand or that I haven't explained well. There's there's there's why am I having a problem convincing them of the plan why why that's got to be on me why can't I communicate properly why don't I why haven't I built a better relationship with this

individual are they giving me this resistance because I've become too familiar do have I do I have a relationship that's too close have I become a friend instead of a leader so all those things require me to ask myself okay what what mistake did I make and how can I fix it how do I fix it do I build a better relationship Or if I've got too close relationship, do I slowly reinstate boundaries? Do I, if I feel like they are not buying into the plan, do I let them come up with the plan? So they get buy in. If they're not understanding my communications, how do I make my communications more simple and clear?

So all those things are my fault. And all those things are a way to stop. And that's that attitude, that resistance is what I think people often refer to as insubordination. Now, like you said, if you're talking, you know, uncontrollable terror inside your team, then you have to take actions to discipline and remove them. This isn't even really that much of a question, right? If you've got someone that is insubordinate, then you need to discipline them and you need to counsel them and you need to remove them.

Either they fix themselves or you remove. You need to like escalate the escalation of counseling. very quickly. Okay, in the SEAL teams, for example, it is very seldom that someone gets kicked out of the SEAL teams for insubordination. I mean, I can think of maybe one or two examples in my whole career. Bad behavior, yes, but bad behavior that they did something stupid and they would come back and appellate. They weren't insubordinate. They just did something stupid. Very seldom would someone actually have straight up insubordination. But there's one more area, right? Right? Between resistance and insubordination.

And I believe that this other area is disrespect. Right now we have another area of disrespect. You got someone that's throwing comments at you. You got someone that's undermining you. You got someone that's making you look bad. So, and I think that can be mistaken for straight up insubordination. You know, who the hell is bad, I think he is? You know, trying to call.

me out and it's right in front of everyone like that you know you know you know team guys would do dumb things to each other like it's dumb and sometimes they could be disrespectful and if someone sensitive you can that can that can sting somebody I'm just thinking of what for some reason I thought of vehicles you know we're always doing dumb things in vehicles but like let's say you had one of your guys and they're going to pick you up you know at a restaurant or or pick you up in front of the barracks and so you know they're sitting there waiting for you walk up and they pull ahead a little bit you walk up to the door again they pull right that could be you're joking around cool but there could be a level of hostility there that actually makes that disrespectful

so we can have situations where people are being disrespectful and you yes you have to address it now once again as we just talked about when we address it the initial approach shouldn't be on attack. I mean, you know, to start out, to start out with, you better stop disrespecting me. If that's where you start, you can win that tactical battle, right?

You can, you know, that person might, you know, Roger that, sir. Where do you end up, though? You end up, when you demand respect, you lose respect. When you demand respect, you lose respect.

So when someone's being disrespectful to you and you just demand respect from them, their respect for you doesn't go, But if you were to say hey listen man obviously I must not be doing something right because I respect you and I respect your experience But I'm not feeling any mutual respect back in my direction and I'm I'm thinking there must be something I'm doing wrong What do I need to do different that I can earn your respect? That approach is going to be infinitely better than you better just give me respect and then when they to respond to you to your first, you know, to the first topic that you brought up today, when you ask them what

you can do better, when you ask them for feedback, you better listen to it. You listen to it. Nod your head, listen, and then actually make adjustments, whatever that thing is. Now, is there a dichotomy here? Can we go too far with this? Yeah. Am I sitting here saying, hey, you can just let people walk all over you? No, absolutely not.

You have to listen to them, but you got to be confident. You got to take things on board. And then once you've taken these things on board, you've got to see if you can actually start building a relationship. If they start to come in your direction. Or do you have an actual bad apple, right? Which you can. You can have a bad apple. And if you have a bad apple, then you start the escalation of counseling and you either win them over or you have to get rid of them.

And what's interesting about this, and you've referred to me multiple times in this particular topic. We'll know a guy who is a seal who maybe got in trouble, you know, a troublemaker, a problem causer. And you've said to me like, hey, Jocko, if that guy worked for you, this wouldn't have happened. And I actually have documented cases where I had guys that actually worked for me that were freaking awesome guys would do absolutely anything I asked me to do. We're totally professional in training, totally professional in combat. And when they worked for me, they were freaking awesome. And then they work for someone else and they would get in trouble. And I had pretty significant punishment administered to these individuals.

And that means that that leader, instead of developing a relationship and trying to make adjustments and trying to get them on board and showing respect, they didn't do that. Those particular individuals you're talking about, too, we were talking about very strong-willed people who are default aggressive and they're not, I don't have time for someone they say sees a weak leader. they don't respect. So, yeah, I, you know, reacting extremely poorly. And what you're talking about is just de-escalating the situation. Totally de-escalating. Whereas if you demand respect, you're escalating that situation versus actually, let's de-escalate. I'm thinking about that as you're saying.

And, you know, we have to correct this misperception all the time. And I think a lot of people, when I hear those kind of comments from leaders that we work with, which happens a lot, they think that in the, military, it's just a bunch of Terminator robots. They're going to just carry out orders and do exactly what you say with no pushback whatsoever. And so they don't know how to react to that. Like, well, they just need to do what I say rather than, okay, they're human beings. So I need to actually explain it to them. And if, you know, if you can turn that around, I mean, that's the power of extreme ownership and recognize, okay, I need to do something better to actually get that person on board. You know, one of the things I've learned from you is like when somebody

is complaining, you should actually listen to them. And it's amazing how you can either defeat their arguments. If you're complaining to me and you're just saying something totally off the wall that makes no sense whatsoever, then I can very easily explain why we shouldn't do that. Or maybe I don't think it's a right call for the team. I mean, I should be able to make that very obvious if it is that obvious. But also, you might be bringing up something that's, and very often is the case, you're bringing up some very valid points.

And even if you just give me three points and one of them is valid, at least now you know, like I'm listening to you. You know, you leave that conversation with like, well, finally, like, they understand, you know, what I bring to the table. So it feeds your ego and I could make some little small change or minuscule thing that can help you. It's crazy, but I'm sure there's someone thinking, yeah, but sometimes you've got to just. And oddly enough, I'm trying to think through my entire, I was only here for 20 years. and think through all those years of the times that I just had to, you know, get rid of somebody because they were insubordinate or they were disrespectful or whatever you want to call it, someone that I couldn't get through to to get them on board.

And I can't think of any. I think the number is zero. So try a little bit harder. Probably a good place to stop. If you want to dig deeper into all aspects of leadership in any arena, you can join Laif. and me and the rest of the Eschelonfront team at EFonline.com where we solve problems through leadership. If you want leadership guidance inside your organization, come and check out our leadership consultancy at Escalonfront.com. We've also written some books on the subject of leadership.

Extreme Ownership, The Dicotomy of Leadership and Leadership Strategy and Tactics. I have some other podcasts. One is called the Jocko Unwrecked. traveling podcasts. One is called Grounded and one is called the Warrior Kid podcast. And also have another podcast, which is simply called Jocko podcast. And if you want to support any of these podcasts, including this one, you can get some gear from jocco store.com or origin main.com. Thanks for listening to the debrief.

Now go lead. This is Laif and Jocko. Out. Thank you.