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If the plan is simple enough, everyone understands it, which means each person can rapidly adjust and modify what he or she is doing. If the plan is too complex, the team can’t make rapid adjustments to it, because there is no baseline understanding of it.

Jocko Willink

I can remember many times when my boat crew struggled. It was easy to make excuses for our team’s performance and why it wasn’t what it should have been. But I learned that good leaders don’t make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get it done and win.
JOCKO WILLINK

Goodness Leadership Learning Myself Remember Struggle Time Win
Good leaders don’t make excuses.
JOCKO WILLINK

Goodness Leadership One Liner
We wrote this so that the leadership lessons can continue to impact teams beyond the battlefield in all leadership situations—any company, team, or organization in which a group of people strives to achieve a goal and accomplish a mission.
JOCKO WILLINK

Accomplishment Company Leadership Lesson People Team
Remember: the enemy gets a vote.
JOCKO WILLINK

Democracy Enemy Remember
leadership is the single greatest factor in any team’s performance.
JOCKO WILLINK

Leadership Team
His realistic assessment, acknowledgment of failure, and ownership of the problem were key to developing a plan to improve performance and ultimately win.
JOCKO WILLINK

Development Failure Himself Improvement Problem Win
To not move around, observe, and analyze, in order to make the best decisions possible, was to fail as a leader and fail the team.
JOCKO WILLINK

Best Decision Failure Leadership Possible Team
You have to BE VIGILANT. You have to be ON GUARD. You have to HOLD THE LINE on the seemingly insignificant little things— things that shouldn’t matter—but that do.
JOCKO WILLINK

Importance Worth Yourself
The goal of leadership seems simple: to get people to do what they need to do to support the mission and the team.
JOCKO WILLINK

Friendship Goal Simplicity Support Team
I had to take ownership of everything that went wrong. Despite the tremendous blow to my reputation and to my ego, it was the right thing to do—the only thing to do. I
JOCKO WILLINK

Myself Reputation Responsibility Right Time
A leader must care about the troops, but at the same time the leader must complete the mission, and in doing so there will be risk and sometimes unavoidable consequences to the troops.
JOCKO WILLINK

Care Leadership Risk Time
A leader must lead but also be ready to follow. Sometimes, another member of the team—perhaps a subordinate or direct report—might be in a better position to develop a plan, make a decision, or lead through a specific situation.
JOCKO WILLINK

Decision Development Leadership Team
It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.
JOCKO WILLINK

Deep Tolerance Yourself
Whether on the battlefield or in the business world, leaders must be comfortable accepting some level of risk.
JOCKO WILLINK

Business Comfortable Leadership Risk Understand War World
Motivation is fickle. It comes and goes.
JOCKO WILLINK

Motivational One Liner
Our egos don’t like to take blame.
JOCKO WILLINK

Blame Ourselves

If the plan is simple enough, everyone understands it, which means each person can rapidly adjust and modify what he or she is doing. If the plan is too complex, the team can’t make rapid adjustments to it, because there is no baseline understanding of it.

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If the plan is simple enough, everyone understands it, which means each person can rapidly adjust and modify what he or she is doing. If the plan is too complex, the team can’t make rapid adjustments to it, because there is no baseline understanding of it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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