How To Tactfully Deliver the Truth – Jocko Willink

since we are talking about deliveringthe truth I'm gonna actually jump into this little section right here which iscalled tactfully delivering the truth when delivering criticism it isimportant to do it with consideration and delicacy if you punch someone in theface with criticism they will become defensive and are unlikely

to take thecriticism on board so a more indirect approach is needed and again that's whatwe just talked about with the other section which is oh look I'm just goingto tell them what's up you need to control your ego you know that's gonnawork out great okay so how do

we do this how do we tell the truth tactfully okayhere first care about your people that's number one care about your people if youtruly care about them they will know that and they will accept your criticismmore easily and this is this is something that I fought about talkingwith

Flynn and when I was the OIC of trade at I was actually listening toFlynn at the muster and he was talking about these savage debriefs that I wouldgive and I have some recorded all playing for you sometimes oh they'resavage yeah I was coming off the top ropes I

mean I was coming off the topropes and as I'm sitting there listening it to Flint because even at that timelike Flynn Cochrane not hard guy to read right like like he's he's not a guythat's like hey I'm not sure what he's thinking like you know you're looking atFlynn

you're like okay I see where he's at Lafe same thing rightLafe is like hey you know what is that what is that term where's where yourmotion on your sleeves right Lafe is no stranger life is not shy about sayinghey i'm not exactly good and he's I mean imagine

you know at least in it like nowbut imagine when life was or whatever right not exactly able to contain hisemotions or hide his emotions so as I'm listening to Flynn up there talkingabout how I used to give these savage briefs and Cirelli same thing right likehow hard is

it to tell when sir Elly's pissed off it's like so easy right sowhen I'm sitting there listening Syme thinking man I used to debrief these guynot all those guys every one of them I gave them debriefsthat were born full right and I'm thinking myself what how is it

that onany of their faces any of their faces I never saw that look of like screw youyou know what shut up you don't know what you're talking about never and andI real and it was the same with like I had one guy that had that that I couldread

that on that I put through training and he's the guy that in podcast numberfive I wrote a counseling letter for which I very seldom did and explained tohim that he was not gonna make it in the SEAL Teams if he didn't be moral if hewasn't didn't become more

humble and a bunch of other things but that's a guythat I could I could see on his face like when I was debriefing him he waspissed but every now think I mean I'd debriefs hundreds of guys and and yetthey would always be like like Roger you know like

that kind of like theydisappointed me like it wasn't they were disappointed that that's the that's thefeeling I always got from Flynn was I can you know Roger or from life likeRoger you know like that's what I that's what I always got back why is that it'sreal easy the

reason is because all those guys knew and and the guys that Iwas putting through training knew more than anything else in the world I caredabout them and I knew that they were going overseas and I knew that they'regoing into combat and more than anything else I wanted them

to be able toaccomplish the mission and I wanted them and their guys to be safe and okay andcome home and they knew that so when it comes to delivering truthful feedbackthe number one thing is to care about your people number one and then the nextthing is take ownership

of your problem of the problem itself of course extremeownership should be the fundamental principle used utilized by any leaderand our tactics of employing extremeownership when trying to critique a subordinate you utilizing extremeownership while providing feedback might sound like this here's some tacticalmaneuvers instead of saying you failed to

get the project done on time use whatsupport or assets could I have given you so that we could have gotten the projectdone on time instead of saying you failed to meet the mission objectivestry using I don't think I did a good job of explaining the mission objective didyou

fully understand it instead of saying your lack ofprofessionalism caused this client to go to our competitor try saying I think Iallowed things to get too slack around here in terms of our professionalism Ithink that's one of the reasons why we lost that client to one of ourcompetitors now

there's guaranteed to be peoplelistening this right now that are thinking what would you that's weak youshould just tell them how are they ever gonna understand what you're talkingabout and it goes back to this when I attack them they're not listening that'sall there is to it when I attack

them the whole thing now if you have a greatrelationship with you if they know you care about them if you know that if theyknow that you have their best their best interests and that's why you're talkingto him yeah you can you can go harder and also when you

get people that youtry indirect approaches on and it fails well then you escalate your directnessand over time until you're eventually like listen you failed this project andthis is not acceptable and if it happens like yes you get there totallyabsolutely don't start there don't start there and by the

way also this is in thebook it's important to take note that these are not simply techniques you areutilizing so your pesky subordinate falls into line that is not the pointthe point of all these statements and the whole point of taking ownership isthat you must truly believe what you

are saying and you should because theownership statements and those examples are not simply lip-service they are trueif the leader follows up with the team members and make sure that they have allthe support and assets they needed to complete the job on time then the jobwill get done on

time if a leader correctly explains the mission in simpleclear concise manner and then ensures it is understood by the teamthe team will accomplish the mission if a leader fails to emphasize theimportance of professionalism then it should come as no surprise thatsubordinates fail to act professionally yes it's on

you the leader