Extreme Ownership – Check The Ego

Extreme Ownership – Check The Ego

After doing F3 Q Source for 2 years on Mondays, the Monday post Asylum crew decided we still wanted to hang around for some fellowship with some learning sprinkled in.  We decided to venture out to a different leadership books with Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin being our first one to tackle.  So why a 2nd F backblast about it?  Because Shop Dawg challenged us a few weeks go to create more FOMO to help draw some guys in.  He said “Guys need this, whether they realize it or not, and it is our job to help them realize it”.  So without further ado….Check the Ego.

For those unfamiliar with Extreme Ownership, the book’s chapters are basically broken down into three parts.  A War Story that tee’s up a principle, then the principle is explained, and then a business example where that principle wasn’t used.   The war stories are great – and I cringe saying that.  But the writing is phenomenal and it really puts you right there in the middle of the battle field.  Whether its a tank ready to unload on what they thought was an enemy position only to find out they were friendlies, or its a mission to capture high level targets in the middle of one of the highest casualty cities during the Iraq War.  The book really does a good job of putting you in the battle field and setting the table for the lesson that is about to be taught.

The book also has several familiar Q Source principles as well.  Mainly pass praise and take the blame, but today we also covered the need to be accelerating and why staying stagnant is bad (decelerating).  Any way, here are my notes from leading today along with some of the examples given.

• What is Ego? (Examples given by the group)
  • Cocky.
  • You think you’re better than everyone
  • Can’t take constructive criticism
  • Your too good to fail or slip up
• The war example dealt with an special forces unit tasked with training new Iraqi soldiers.  They arrived to the joint army/marine base with an ego and cockyness that quickly went south.  They didn’t conform to base culture.  They talked down to other soldiers.  They wouldn’t share battle plans or positions.   In short, their ego’s were in the way.  And eventually it cost them their jobs.  They were sent packing by the base commander as they were doing more harm than good.  Task Force Bruiser (Jocko’s Navy Seals) did the opposite.  They cut their hair, made sure uniforms were pressed and neat, and intentionally built comradery with fellow soldiers.   The result was an elite base, a better trained Iraqi unit, and an eventual turning of the war.
• A quote from Jocko that I found impactful “But I tried to temper that confidence by instilling a culture to never be satisfied”.  I tied this in with F3’s always be accelerating point from Q Source.
• Traits of those who check their ego:
  • Continuous Improvement
  • Humility and Mutual Respect
    • I gave my personal example of having to call on folks from the warehouse level all the way up to the Senior VP level and how the Warehouse guy can cost me just as much business as the Senior VP can give me.
      • Further discussions involved Walt Disney and how he connected with his employees and was willing to do it all around the park – including helping to clean toilets.
• Don’t let your ego take precedent over doing what is best to accomplish the mission.
  • Lots of discussion around this.  Sometimes as men we let our pride or our own goals get in the way of the greater team mission.
    • Loafer with a couple Kohls examples.
• The business example given in the book centered around a mid level manager and a supervisor who worked for him on an oil rig.  The supervisor made a spur of the moment decision to change the process which cost about 2 days of work.  In the oil industry 2 days equals hundreds of thousands of dollars.   The manager was dreading the confrontation that was going to happen when he went to this supervisor.  But Extreme Ownership reverses the roles.  The supervisor is not to blame.  It is you as the manager that did not equip him with enough information to make the right decision.  When you go to the supervisor and explain how you failed, how you will be better about giving him the right information and tools to make the right decision, it changes the conversation.   It is a conversation instead of a screaming match.
• Summary: Extreme Ownership requires checking ego, admitting mistakes, and having humility.
  • Confident not cocky, never too good to fail, and never complacent.