Extreme Ownership – Recommended Reading

This is a short and sweet book recommendation for the book Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.

Jocko was a Navy SEAL officer in charge of managing other Navy SEALs, and he basically relates his experience with managing teams in that setting, being just like teams in regular life, just with higher stakes of life and death. The book itself is entertaining, but probably “guy-focused” because of all the action movie-style military stuff that makes up the stories.

It’s kind of like reading an Arnold Schwarzenegger book that happens to also have content about business in it. (If you want to hear more about my philosophy on how to get the most out of business books check out this blog post as well).

Who Should Read This Book?

So who should read this book?

Maanagers and Leaders

This is a book geared towards people working on their managerial and leadership skills especially.

Owners Focusing On Self-Discipline

It’s also useful for individuals who are trying to improve their self-discipline for how they manage themselves.

Those are the two main people that should consider reading this book.

If you’re looking for a prescription, and you have one of those two problems, I would definitely give this book a listen or a read.

Topic Focus

Something I have found very difficult is to find good books on management and leadership.

In my mind, before reading this book and a few others, leadership was kind of like charisma.

It was this idea of a thing either you had or you didn’t have, and if you weren’t a natural leader that people wanted to follow, then you just weren’t ever going to be able to have that capability.

This book showed some very key principles that made it more obvious how to have somewhat of a vision, how to protect the people that report to you underneath you and to be clear and transparent in a way that really moves things towards a positive direction.

I found it to be very helpful on the leadership side of management especially, not bogged down into some impractical details of management. I found the lessons in there to be very applicable right away.

Indications The Timing Is Right To Implement This Book

Timing-wise, this is a book that’s really good if you’re starting to feel kind of stuck in your business.

If you’re feeling like you’re trying to implement some things in your business but aren’t having really good buy-in from the people who work directly underneath you, then leadership is a helpful tool in that case.

If you’re feeling a bit stuck because you are not comfortable wearing the shoes of a leader. Maybe when you started your own business, you hadn’t really managed people before, and now you’re in a spot where you have some employees, and you’re not comfortable with that managerial responsibility, or don’t know the best qualities of a leader, then this is a good guideline to give you some things to think about to map that out.

Key Concepts In The Book Extreme Ownership

I’ll cover some of the key concepts in the book. (The depth of detail you’ll get from reading the book is 100x more useful than just a bullet list, but this should help you determine if you are interested or not).

1.) Embrace Extreme Ownership

That’s what the book is called, Extreme Ownership. This is the idea that “everything that happens in business is your fault.”

Now while technically it might not always be true it’s all your fault, if you approach it as if it is your fault, you actually can make changes.

So in this thing that went poorly, what was my part in that?

What could I have done differently?

What can I do differently in the future?

That’s how you learn and move forward.

It is so easy just to make excuses and say, oh well that employee just didn’t care, he went off the rails and didn’t follow instructions.

But if instead you take the approach of what could I have done to make sure those instructions were even more clear?

Could I have sat and had him do those instructions with me present to make sure he was clear on that?

Those types of approaches can make a really big difference in the future, and in my experience applying this principle has been very, very helpful across all businesses.

And there are times when whatever happened was out of the hands of somebody, but if you approach it like that’s never the case, your results are much, much better than always having an excuse for everything that happens.

That’s the key concept of Extreme Ownership is taking responsibility for everything. That was principle one.

2.) No Bad Teams Only Bad Leaders

This basically follows up on that idea if it’s all your fault, if your team isn’t working out, well it’s your fault. You picked those people, you must not have made it clear enough to them exactly what their expectations are or enforced those expectations.

This idea that taking it all on yourself makes leadership go a lot smoother.

The interesting thing here is as you take more and more blame for the quality of your team, your team might stand up and say, actually “Boss that’s not your fault, that’s our fault, we could have done a better job.”

You find that they’re more on your side, it becomes a less them versus me mentality because you’re not looking for scapegoats back and forth.

3.) Check Your Ego

This removes blocks of trying to hold on to this idea that you’re very good at what you do, you’re very, very important, and being more vulnerable and susceptible to where could you improve and any situation you can notice areas you can improve in.

4.) Prioritize And Execute

There are always a million things that need to be done in business.

It’s important to focus on what are the actual key goals that we’re going to focus on here so we don’t get bogged down in the details.

When managing a team, this is essential to make sure they have a streamlined idea of what to do step by step.

5.) Decentralized Command

This is one I think that people struggle with.

I know that as you start to manage people, there can be a tendency either to manage by abdication, (doing nothing, let them handle it themselves) or micromanaging (where you manage every single detail).

This idea of decentralized command gives people below you some power to manage within their own teams as well. And that power requires clear goals, responsibility, communication, and trust back and forth. There does need to be a process there.

Each person can only manage about five to six direct reports, especially when things get chaotic, it gets less than that very, very quickly.

Having a structure in place so that you can successfully manage people and they can manage those under them makes it a lot easier.

6.) Keep Things Simple

The more complex they are, the harder it is to communicate, the more chances there are for things to go wrong.

Keeping things simple on the basis of what someone needs to know to do a good job is very, very key.

7.) Cover And Move

This is the idea of leaving no man behind.

Again, if the team has an issue, you as the leader have a responsibility to absorb the damage from that and say, “Hey guys, I know that we didn’t get this job done on time. It’s my fault. I must not have given clear enough instructions on exactly how to manage this particular operation, this job.”

In that case, oftentimes that cover you provide, again, the employees are more likely to step up and say, actually, we could have done better, or maybe it is your fault and that’s fine too. But in that way, they feel protected and safe.

They’re more likely to be more invested in being part of that team and wanting you to be the leader of that team, because who really wants to take the flack like that and you’re doing it willingly?

They’d rather not have that responsibility or go work for someone else who just lets them fall on their own pains and problems.

8.) Lead By Example

This is showing self-accountability.

If you fail or make a mistake, being okay and vulnerable with that is very, very key. Being not a robot is very, very key.

That helps them see that you are a real person like them and helps them see you again, not as an “us versus them” mentality, where they’re more bought into your leadership and can see that because you’ll take responsibility for what goes wrong, that they can trust you more, and that puts them more in a position to do the same and not have to deflect and hide from their own responsibility.

9.) Decisiveness

It is really key to know exactly what needs to be done and give direction so people can head in that direction. Otherwise, they’re just wandering about not knowing what to do.

Read And Apply To Your Business As Needed

These sound vague on paper. Like any other book, these concepts are very well laid out, but you have to actually take these notes as you go and apply them to your business directly, usually one area at a time.

I found this book very fun to read.

The audiobook is, again, pretty enjoyable. I think I laughed out loud at some of the gritty scenes described in a business book, which can be normally somewhat boring. So if you’re looking for this type of book, highly recommend it.

It’s been out for a long time, proven on the bookshelves, and this is not an endorsed review. I’m not trying to get any type of bonus sales or no link to buy it.

Just if this is one you want to read, I’d recommend it if you have these problems.

Thanks and have a good one.