You're listening to the Ones Ready podcast, a team of Air Force Special Operators forged in combat with over 70 years of combined operational experience as well as a decade of selection instructor experience. If you're tired of settling and you want to do something you truly believe in, you're in the right place. Now here's your host, PJ Team Leader, jiu jitsu lover, meme enthusiast, and dad joke aficionado, Aaron Love.
Aaron:Welcome everybody back to the Ones Ready podcast. You're here in the team room with us, the team, Brian, Trent, Peaches, and of course myself, Aaron. Today we're going to get into something that you can apply across, not military, not just assessment and selection, but throughout your entire life. How do you get along with that boss? What's the relationship like? We're going to talk about officer and enlisted relationships specifically in the pipeline and further in your career, but this can be applied to anybody. If you have a boss that's one step higher than you, how do you engage with that supervisor and make sure that your relationship is good and that you guys are getting towards that final mission or whatever goal it is that you guys have as an organization. First, we want to thank everybody that we have helped us to get where we are right now and that's all of you first for listening to the podcast for following us at the Ones Ready Instagram account and for going to the website onesready.com and checking out what we got there. Keep going. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple podcasts. Give us that rating. Give us that review if you'd like what we're doing and of course engage us across any one of the social media platforms come to us. Let us know. We don't have a Twitter yet. Maybe we'll start a Twitter like maybe we'll start a poll. I don't know what I would tweet out daily about Ones Ready, but Hey man, it seems to be all the rage with the kids. No Tik Toks though. That's where we're, we're drawing a line. As always, if you need some extra energy for the day, man, go hit up Strike Force Energy. Use the code ONESREADY at checkout to let them know that we sent you over there. They've been a friend of the podcast this entire time and out of the goodness of their hearts, they've decided to give you a discount for using their sweet product. Again, Strike Force Energy. Go check them out at strikeforceenergy.com and enter the code ONESREADY at checkout and let them know that you by supporting them support us in this podcast. So let's get down to it. You're going to be at assessment selection, whether you're a STO, a CRO, PJ, a TACP, a Combat Controller, and you're going to have a boss on your team. You're going to have bosses at the school house, you're going to have eight bosses Bob. We All have a bosses. But the real question here is somebody that you're shedding those blood, sweat, and tears right next to, you're almost drowning every day. You're almost failing on those pushups, doing grass and gorillas. You can't go one step further on your ruck. You look to the support to the guy on your left or the female on your right. And that person might be your boss. So what does that relationship look like? Well, in the words of, Chief Master Sergeant Ramón"CZ" Colón-López, if you want to fly with the eagles, you can't hang out with the turkeys. So you're going to make sure that you make that relationship as best as you possibly can. But how do you do it when there's those those lines, especially officers and enlisted. So, man I'm gonna start out hot. I'm going to go straight straight to peaches. Can you explain, explain what is the officer's role on any team? So this, and of course this could be a boss in the civilian world, but what is the officer's role on a team? Like what are their responsibilities? Is there a difference between in charge and in command? I'll just tee it up for you and let you go.
Peaches:So I see it as there is definitely a difference between in-charge and in command. The officers are in command like that. That is, they have their certain authorities provided to them that put them in command so they are able to make those decisions. Now when we talk about who's actually in charge, I'm sure there's some people out there would absolutely disagree with everything that I'm going to say, but okay. I know there's comments, they're just going to be like, you're out of your mind, you know, but at least in a team perspective, your SNCOs are the ones that are in charge because they are the ones that are going to take that intent from that officer and an execute it. That officer doesn't need to necessarily say, Hey, this is the way that you're going to do it and this is the way I want it done. Unless it's gotta be something very particular. Other than that, as a SNCO, I should just be getting what the intent is and what the end goal is and then, Hey, I'm moving out. Whether I'm moving out on my own or I'm moving out and I'm taking the team with me and we're, we're executing this and getting it done. That's why that's where the whole in charge and in command comes from. For me, I see an officer's role is being like, we always like to say up and out, so that officer needs to be heads up focusing on future things, incoming things that are coming in and out and think about big picture stuff. Whereas as SNCO or an enlisted guy, I'm looking down and in as in, I'm looking after the guys, I'm taking care of the guys, I'm ensuring the guys are trained correctly. I'm sure in the guys are equipped correctly, anything that they need to support them, their family, their training, their deployment requirements, anything like that, that is all on me or whoever that SNCO or even, you know, some at INDOC or A&S you're not going to have a SNCO so they're going to be NCOs or even, you know, some Senior Airman or E-4s that are, you know, prior service or cross trainees, they will also find themselves in charge and they need to be able to step up to that plate and execute that and go, okay, from the officers and the cadre that are at A&S, what's the intent? Okay, now I can execute it.
Aaron:That's kind of like an important thing too that people don't realize like NCO have their authority and have their, their power delegated to them from the office or like NCO is don't hold any, you don't hold any power on your own. You are delegated authority by your commander. You know, if you're a Senior Airman that's taken over as a team leader at A&S, you're granted authority by the people at INDOC, eventually the officer at it A&S or wherever it is that you are. And that's how you satisfy that intent, how you satisfy that commander's intent. It's no different in the civilian world. Your boss says, Hey, you're the assistant to the regional branch manager, so you're going to, even if it's even if it's assistant to the regional branch manager, you have power in that title and in that authority. So yeah, the up and out thing is always, always a good one. If you know, up and out for the officer is his health, morale and welfare has everybody healthy. How was the morale and then the welfare, the overall unit, and then down in, in your men, weapons, and equipment, your stuff like showtimes and equipment, you know, all those other things that are, that are kind of those, those NCO things. Brian, you're in a really, really unique position where you're an enlisted guy, but now you're an officer, so you went over, are you, you're, you're a little Lieutenant, huh?
Brian:Uh, not yet. I got another couple of months and I'm still just, they make us wear this cadet rank while in PA school right now. So I wear this little weird thing on my chest. Yeah, I put it up on one of my stories when I graduated from Phase I. But anyway, so I have this weird transition rank right now where I really haven't been given any formal schooling as an officer or anything like that. So I'm still just functioning as an enlisted guy, but they make me wear this word rank. So people kind of just salute out of the, I guess they don't understand, like they don't want you to yell, they're just like your confusion. I'm just like, okay. So, u m, bottom line is though, I've been in the, you know, in the military for 14 years now and I've seen it evolve a nd myself, my own, u h, idea of what I see an officer as has kind of evolved initially. I was k inda like, I'm never going to be an officer. You know, that whole enlisted mentality when you're going through indoc and you're like, that's never g oing t o happen. U h, in sled dog f or t he l ife, all these CROs and all these guys, like they're just yuppies that went to some college place and you know, whatever. In the military, obviously they p aid for my school o r allow me to become an officer. So, u m, I'm going to take as much of that as I can and make sure that these people that are in the medical community get this enlisted type of leadership as well as the type of officer leadership that I e xpected. And the big thing that I see for anybody and for myself, what I'm trying to embody is that specific thing. Like Peach was talking about, I'm going to be in command and I'm going to have that oversight of, you know, I just give the analogy of we're all in one ship and we're steering a ship. The guy that's in command is the person t hat i s looking out from the crows nest or he's looking out and you can see what's going ahead and he's saying that's the direction I want to go. And then he tells all t he people that are working in the ship like this, this is where I want to go. Just make it happen. They don't need to say like, I want you to turn the whatever this way, I want you to do this. Exactly like that. You just say, this is how we want it to go. And then the enlisted guys, like Peach was saying, who are in charge are g oing t o say, Hey you guys, you know, this is what I want you to do. And then you break it down from there to elements.
Aaron:As you're saying that, like the picture that I had in my mind, the uh, the old painting of George Washington across the Delaware on Christmas Eve as he's looking like very manly and standing there. But what it actually looks like for you guiding that boat is when SpongeBob learns how to drive and gets his driver's license.
Trent:Did you just conflate SpongeBob and George Washington, like the our first leader.
Aaron:Yeah, absolutely. The leader and the almost King of America and the Prince of America, which is SpongeBob. This is what happens when you wake me up early to do podcasts. I mean, weird ideas. So to get back, to get back on track, Brian, so what are some of the pitfalls that you're specifically going to avoid? So you know, that we talked about there's a distinct lane for each officer and enlisted, you know, kind of person, like as you're making that transition, what are the things that you specifically want to avoid? Like, yeah, you want to be in command and you want to make sure that your NCO is, are in charge. But what are you specifically like I am not going to do?
Brian:Yes. So the biggest thing that I find and that some officers have lacked, like throughout my career, um, micromanaging, obviously like we talking about the ship analogy, I don't want to be a person that's gonna micromanage and is going to tell every single person exactly how you should do it. You've got to empower those guys that are going to be working with you and for you to come up with their own ideas, do their own kinds of schemes or however they're going to plan out the day. However they're going to plan out their meetings, let them actually talk and let them become their own leader. Because that's what we're doing is our job as leaders is to grow future leaders. And if we don't let guys that are in those positions take control and experience their own failures and come with their own ideas, then they're not going to grow as leaders. So we can guide them and show them the ways that we do it, the ways that we found as best practices. But overall we have to let those people actually experienced that failure or experienced that success. If it's better than any idea that we could have come up with and we tell them like, this is awesome, good job. Keep on pushing forward and you're motivating the entire team. Like you're making this way better than I could have probably even done it. So I'm empowering. The guys like that is huge. And then the second thing that I preach to all my dudes, whenever we go out to any of the events or at INDOC is you really have to get to know the person. And I'm not talking about like everyone's going to say, Oh, an officer or hanging out with an enlisted person is fraternization, whatever. It's a little bit different than the Special Operations community. Yeah. You have to know the guy that you're working with inside and out and you need to know when they're having a bad day. You need to know when they're having a good day, when they're on their peak performance time because not everyone's going to be like constantly 100% performing all the time. There's dips and valleys. So you need to know whenever that person is in that mode or that person's ready for work. You just need to know pretty much everything about them in order to actually get, a productive relationship and take care of each other. Especially when you get busy down range.
Aaron:Got it. So they're peacocks, you gotta let them fly, make sure Peaches always has snacky snacks.
Brian:Exactly. Snacks are the biggest, I can't believe I didn't say that. Yeah, yeah. Snacks at all time. Otherwise everything just collapses.
Aaron:It falls apart. Everything just complete cats and dogs living together, worst parts of the Bible, I'm actually just seeing how many movie quotes and stuff. I can slide into this one. We should have like a tracker. I'll put it on the YouTube video. How many, how many cliche quotes in that reference. Okay. That one was from the other guys. We'll Trent. So from the, from the other side of the coin here, so you know, what in your opinion is like the most, the most important thing an enlisted guy can do to support that officer or the, you know, even talking civilian, we're like a subordinate to boss or whatever because we own obviously, you know, the subordinates are the enlisted guys, whatever you're talking about, we own 50% of that relationship, right? So what can we do in order to support that officer?
Trent:Well, I think so we tend to give the officers a hard time, right? Cause they'll show up on team and they're subject matter experts. And I think that developing that relationship with that officer is the biggest part. And the honesty. Um, Oh and we have sayings that kind of lead us to the right way of doing things. We say things like the Team Sergeant, it's his team, right? And it's not really his team, but that's kind of the let people know like, I'm, these are my bros, these are my guys. This is my, this is what I do. I make all of this work for you, Sir. The Team Sergeant side, it's incumbent upon me to keep that feedback loop with my boss going 100% of the time. I think one of the reasons we give officers such a hard time in the beginning, especially if they accidentally go down the road of trying to tell staff Sergeant Snuffy how to do his business is because it's not their job to do that. And, uh, you know, it's easy for them to delve into that a little bit. Um, but it's the team sergeant's job to be like, Hey sir, staff Sergeant so-and-so knows what he's doing. This is my thing. Um, so you go up and out but that staff Sergeant will make fun of that officer may be a little bit behind his back not knowing that all that magic happens up above them that brings that goodness back down to the team that enables them to do their job. Not sure if I'm making sense right now.
Brian:No, you totally are. That is a huge thing though, that we to bring up also like if you are a person that's an NCO and this in-charge don't do that undermining like behind their back.
Aaron:Nothing more toxic to a team. Yeah, you can't, you can't completely undermine the guy that's going to go to war for you with the commander to make sure that you get everything that you want. Like that is, that is the most toxic thing that you can do in a team room.
Peaches:Yeah. But you've got to, I think it, and it's, it's not just part of a team, right. You're, this is, goes for essentially any organization that kind of has that, that kind of structuring and organization. But that commander or that officer is one part of the team. That NCO or SNCO is the second part. If there's decisions that need to be made, they should be done together. They need to be talking, actively communicating, very transparent with each other. Almost that SNCO or that NCO needs to be a sounding board against or not against, but a sounding board for that officer to bounce things off of. And a lot of times the, the SNCO and the enlisted guys, they just have, you know, more technical experience or maybe they've been doing it longer than the officer and it's like, Hey, Sir or Ma'am, great idea, you know, but like maybe do it this way a little bit or here's why you like straight up no. Or I agree with you 100% and this is why. Um, but if that's done behind closed doors, which it should be like, there should be no bickering or discussion done in front of anybody else other than those two individuals when that, when they come out of that office, they should be locked step under the same thing. So I mean, in the end the officer can still go, this is the way we're doing it and then that's the way it's going to be done. And then me, I'm like, okay, Roger that. And then when we walk out, I'm given the execution orders saying, Hey, here's how we're doing it. That way. I'm the one taking the brunt of anything or, and I can explain it. I would never ever say, did this dudes beat? Can you believe he's making us do that? Imagine how toxic that would be.
Aaron:I distinctly remember like, this is one of those, one of those things where you know, so very first, very first mission on my, you know, my last deployment I was in, we were in Northeast Afghanistan doing something. And, uh, so we're, we're, we literally get a call, we're running up the hill and it's the first time that this young Lieutenant is going to go out on a mission and we're running and we're like going back and forth. And as we get to the helicopter, I always sat on the right side of the helicopter for whatever reason. That was just always my spot. I always felt like I had the best vantage point. It was always better for me and whatever. So I got into the habit, sit on the right, he gets all of his stuff. Like I, we get to the helicopter and I look and his stuff is on the right. And I was like, Hey Sir, I need you to sit on the left. He's like, no, I want to sit on the right. So in the heat of the moment here, like we're fighting over seat preference. But it was one of those times where I was just like, all right, fine, sit on the right side. I hard"S'd" him too. I was like, fine Sir. He was like, did you just put a hard S on that? And I was, like I said, with all due respect, but it was, it was one of those things like it was more, it was more important for me in that relationship to be like, Hey, he's the officer. He gets to do what he wants. I'll sit on the left side of the aircraft. I'll go do this over here. You know? So, um, it, it's a funny example and kind of like a one off, but you know, it's a relationship. We have to build that trust and that intimacy with one another and you have to figure out like, is this your lane? Is this my lane? How do you want me to handle it? You know, my job as an NCO is always to protect the officer. That's our entire job is protect the officer. Cause if we get in trouble as a team, I'm probably going to get chewed out and I've been chewed out before. So, you know, it ain't that bad. But the officer is going to get fired. Like the Officer is going to get tuned up. Like they'll end his career and that's the burden, the burden of command or the responsibility of having that authority. So you have to understand and internalize that as a command team. And I'm glad that you brought that up, but maybe, you know, like any other relationship, maybe you guys don't like each other very much and you've got to talk through it, but there's nothing better than having that, that mind-meld sort of connection with your officer where you're officer is about to say something and you're already doing it and then they're already doing the next step that you need. There's probably no better feeling in the world. And then just being on the same page and really getting stuff done. So, I mean, we're going to, we're going to open it up and get into the heart of this thing. I'm going to open up, so some questions for you guys that I haven't told you before, but I want to have some answers here to get some stuff. You know, Trent, what is every time, Trent, what's the, what's the worst example of an officer and enlisted relationship that you have ever had? And I want you to name names. No, I don't. Can you, can you just, you know, talk through, you know, in vague terms, just talk about some of those things like, Hey, this was the, this was an example of a pretty bad relationship and this is how I, how I work through it. Most importantly. How did you work through it?
Trent:Yeah, so it's, it's pretty obvious. Um, when the, the problem is sometimes I've had it an emotional Team Sergeant and emotional Team Leader at the same time. They have a hard time getting along. Um, and so I get it. It's sometimes it's difficult as a SNCO to get a brand new officer on deck and be like, this is the way that we do things and he disagrees vehemently I don't know how to say that. Right. Brian, you're the college person. They disagree and it's early, right? They're here. The problem is, is when they bring that back out to the team and everybody knows, so it's mom and dad are fighting and you're like a staff Sergeant on team trying to keep your little guys together and moving forward. And essentially what happened in that situation was that the Team Sergeant was delegated down to a lower level. You know what I mean? So, the, all the execution was done at a lower level while mom and dad were fighting. And it's real toxic if it's happened a few times and you see like, you know, people fighting about stuff in front of the guys and, uh, it just, all it does is lowers that level of, you have to find someone in that chain, in the enlisted chain that's willing to like, be calm and execute things and give advice and, uh, go out there and execute the mission. It should never happen guys. It's like, like a Peach was saying, you gotta you gotta do stuff behind closed doors. Uh, you can't go out there and micromanage like Brian was saying. And um, you have to have that, that relationship, we call it the chain of command for a reason. I'm going to tangent here for a second. Uh, but trust is everything and if you don't have that trust at the Team Sergeant Team Leader level the Team Leader can't go to the boss and say, my guys are capable of doing all these things. So he has to trust the team. Sergeant team Sergeant has to connect that chain down with the guys below him and say these are the reasons that we're doing things and develop his NCOs to understand why the officer's side of the house is asking us to do certain things and just keep that connection going and all that communication. So communication and trust is vital and maybe sometimes keeping your feelings out of the team room is a key to everything.
Aaron:Yeah, for sure. And you brought up a good point there and we've kinda like danced around it a couple of times. Peaches meant mentioned it before, but that's, that's your job too is like as a subordinate kind of is like a mid-management sort of guy. Your job is to be able to explain commander's intent in a way that the people beneath you want to follow and complete that, that intent. They want to satisfy that intent. So you can't walk out of that room and just like Peaches said earlier, you can't walk out of there like, all right guys, I don't know why we're doing this and it's dumb, but we're just going to do it. Like that is, that is poor leadership like one Oh one. Uh, just from the very beginning. So on the flip side of that coin. Peach, what's the, what's the best officer enlisted relationship that you've ever worked for and what were some hallmarks? Like why would you say so? I want you to tell us like, Hey, this was the best one, but then tell me why it was so good.
Peaches:Okay. So I've actually worked for some pretty awesome officers. So there's only been probably two that I can think of that were not great. But, the biggest thing was we're there, there are a couple, you know, benchmarks or hallmarks if you will. There's trust which that goes into any relationship, right? So I could talk about trust, but were we just be regurgitating other stuff? So what I would say and when I, what me and my officer did was we set expectations for each other right off the bat. Like we met obviously and then within a week we both came to each other, sat down for, I don't know, probably two hours and going like, Hey, here's who I am, here's who you are. The, you know, here's our backgrounds, here's our philosophies. The way we think, Sir, these are my expectations. And I had them written down like, these are my expectations from you. I would also say, Hey, this, these are my expectations of you. These are what you can expect from me now what? And then he would, he would give me exactly what his expectations are and what he, you know, essentially promises that he will do. And that transparency and that support and understanding that man, what we are there for, which is ensuring the team's ready to go to combat, executing well in combat and bringing everybody back home. Like that's huge. And that was our primary goal and it just, it just really worked well. And you know, with my next commander that, I mean, I, I don't know if I'll end up going to that job or not, but, uh, you know, I just, my next commander, same thing, I'm going to show up. Hey Sir, nice to meet ya. Here it is. Here's my expectations. What do you want from me? What are your, what are your lines of effort or what are your, your lines operations like what are your priorities? Like let's do it
Aaron:Like give me some left and right so I can go crush this for you. Perfect. So, Brian, I want you to kind of hit the middle ground on this one, right? So Trent talked bad and Peaches talked good, but you know what, what's an example of like some uh, some give and take that you've had to make? Like do you have any stories about compromising with one of your officer leaders and how did you feel after that? That kind of backup?
Brian:Yeah, so I think one of the big things is we're talking in like idealistic terms here as far as what you should convey as an officer and how you should do your duty as an enlisted person. And we all know that life in general, whenever you actually show up, it happens and everything's not going to be perfect. You're going to screw something up. You're not going to do a report in time or the way that the person was kind of picturing it happening. So, you know, I've dealt with some of those people that were micromanagers and some of those people that kinda just let you do whatever you wanted to do. As long as you know, you stayed within legal bounds. So there's a wide spectrum of officers that you're gonna run into, but for those micromanagers and those people that are like always kinda just down your throat and they're expecting you to really produce and turn in certain things on time, you have to look for those things that are at the top of their radar. So, um, for example, there was a, you know, when I was down at INDOC, there were some people that they basically wanted me to do these amount of paperwork for the people that were getting eliminated. Uh, people that were going to the dorms and tracking that kind of thing. And if I could track them and tell them, Hey, this is what I got, these are the people that are going to be going here, these people, they're going to go on there. You know, for the most part that was like the biggest thing that they really even cared about. So I took care of that stuff. And then aside from that, obviously there are a lot of other inner workings that were down at the shop. So I take care of that stuff after I'm done. So really putting in order of priority according to, you know what the highest visibility, what's gonna show up on the red on the commanders and everyone's going to be hitting me up about and it's going to create more work if I'm going to just knock this stuff out now. So knocking that stuff out is huge and just prioritize this. I used to have like a chart put obviously the things that I need to do on top first and then work my way down from there and then I can go home once I have like three or four things left on the, on the checklist. So, cause that stuff was for later
Aaron:The ever expanding to do list. And I don't know, I've never like until I got into the military, I've never known that a to do list can grow exponentially throughout the day. You think like, okay, this morning I'm going to write this to do list down and then I'll get it done. Yeah.
Brian:You try to log in your computer and you're CAC is expired. I'm going to go down to the freaking office now. So I mean stuff always comes up like we're saying, Nope, nothing's ideal and doesn't turn out exactly like you want it to be. So that's one way for those guys. And then, you know, on the other side, you just have to be that person that is, as long as you are doing the right thing, you know your job, just like Peaches was saying and you're headed in the right direction, um, as whatever they told you that you, they wanted you to be doing, then you can't, you're in a defensible position at least. And you can say, sir, this is what I was doing. You know, this is what I was taking care of. If you want me to reprioritize now, reprioritize and take care of these things or that kind of thing. So you guys are both on the same page and there's always going to be confusion. Maybe he'll say, Oh, I thought I told you that I wanted this and that. Like, okay, no problem, I can readjust and fix some stuff. So there's always just that communication. Kind of like Trent was saying, you know, just communication, making sure that we're heading the right direction and on the same page with everything. And that will be huge.
Aaron:Yeah, I was just gonna say, I mean it's, you know, he just to, you know, you might have to change your own leadership style as well. You might have to, you know, change up the way that you do things. Just like Brian was saying, like if you have an officer that cares about priorities one, two and three. If those aren't your priorities, it really doesn't matter. You get to knock those out for, for the boss and do what you're supposed to do.
Peaches:Yeah. And I just Brian touched on it a little bit. The, if you're doing the right thing, like if you're already doing the right thing, your decision is pretty simple. Like, I mean it's, it's already laid out for you. I'm doing the right thing, drive on, you know, and then there's no question of morality or ethics or anything like that. You just do the right thing and execute.
Aaron:Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Hey, trends. Do you ever want to be an officer? Well, I did until we started doing this podcast and then I was like, Nope, sounds like a lot of responsibility. Fantastic. Peaches, what about you man? Did you ever want to be an officer? Did you ever consider it?
Peaches:My first assignment, I just, I was I think to go be an officer, but that I quickly got over that, uh, that was only like a, a three month stint where I was like, yeah, okay, I'll do it. And then it was like, Oh no, actually I'm having way too much fun doing this. Like I like working. It doesn't mean that officers don't work like they do. They absolutely work. But I'm talking about like, I like being in the trenches, sweating and just going HAM on stuff, you know, like, that's, that's my comfort zone. Um, and I play and I look at it and it's, I'm gonna try and bring it around full circle here. It's like the trashcan, right? Trash cans overflowing. And you have some people that just walk right by it because they're like, Oh, well, I've, I've arrived. I've made it, that's beneath me. I'll do it. Someone else would do it. And it's like, I don't care if you're an officer, you're enlisted. If you're the commander, if you're the brand new person at the unit, you'd better get that trash better take it out. And I'm the same way. Like if I walked by it, I damn well better go grab that trash and take it out. And that's a very simplistic way of putting things. But I think you can really tell a lot about somebody, or at least their character, if you, if they're willing to just walk by stuff. Now obviously there's, you know, other circumstances where, Hey, I'm on the way to a meeting or there's people who are in a hurry and I don't have time to sit there and take out the trash. I'll get it when I come back. But you know, generally speaking, I think you can tell a lot about somebody if they're willing to just walk by trash and not pick it up or not take it out because they think that, Oh well that someone else would do it, or one of the junior people will take it. Like that's BS. I think.
Trent:Well, can I caveat off that real quick? Is the, the number of people that join our community with Bachelor's degrees and choose to be enlisted is really, really high. I know this is, I only bring it up cause I've been, uh, being in in this question quite a bit lately and guys are like, well if I had my degree, why wouldn't I just go be an officer? And it's like, we'll look into it cause there are different jobs, right? Like there they're completely different career fields across the board. And so there's a fair number of people that make that uh, that decision with their eyes open that I'd rather be enlisted at least, uh, for like the first 10 years or whatever.
Brian:Well yeah, we had Ivy league dudes in my class and I had them going through as I was an instructor. Like I'd tell them, obviously counting off is one of the things that we do. And they obviously never had any problems with any of that kind of stuff. They'd actually tell me like, why did you make a do of by sevens instead of do it by age? Because we have this many people and he could have done it this way and it's like drop. You just started yourself some extra training.
Aaron:Well tell me this college boy, how many, how many inches are those fins supposed to be above the water? You're so smart. How come you couldn't do an underwater? Can you count that? What's a show? What can a drag coefficient a full BDU and I wanted to find out what about letting pockets versus and bled pockets. What do I do then? Well, I don't know how to get any of this done.
Brian:Well, but what Peaches was saying was taking care of the small things. That's going to be huge. Like throughout everything that you do, like taking care of the trash. Um, anytime you go up and talk to any of you're enlisted person, if you're actually paying attention and listening to him, like shake people's hands, look them in the eye, that whole thing. It tells you the genuineness of the person and whether or not you're going to be full of yourself, where you're just like, well I have to say hi to him. Hey, how's it going? And then you move on kind of thing. Or are you actually like there to care about the person that's right there in front of you? So all those little things are huge in an officer. And if I first meet somebody and they're like that and I'm like, okay, well I kind of see where this person's at as far as they're thinking of me or thinking of the rest of the guys. So that's, yeah, that's, that's cool.
Aaron:It's kind of a different thing too is like you're always going to find your own leadership style and it might not be right away so quick as enlisted dudes, especially for, you know, kind of in that E-6 you know, senior E-5 and especially E-7, you make that first impression that first six months of an officer and you kind of forget the fact that you're supposed to help them get there. You're supposed to help that junior captain get all the way to where they're that solid leader that you want to work for. And I think too quickly sometimes guys, especially in our career fields will, we'll take that initial snapshot and they'll be like, I've been hiding by this trash bag for eight minutes trying to see who would take it. And he walked. He walked by it. I can't believe it. This guy is terrible. Well I did you take them aside and be like, Hey sir, that's not how we do things here. Let me help you. Like that's your job as a senior NCO, both in the senior NCO tier and as a senior E-6, as an NCO that has seniority. You're supposed to help those young Lieutenants and those young Captains out. Cause how else are they supposed to know?
Peaches:Right? And if, whether you're at A&S you're on a team or you're part of a command leadership team. Like, if you guys can't get along and can't work through things and progress the unit, the units will have suffer, the units going to fail. So you two the officer and the enlisted have both failed the entire unit. And I mean that's, that's terrible. But it happens.
Aaron:Yeah, it does. You hate to see it fail. You hate to say it when it happens, but it definitely does happen when command teams aren't using, uh, you know, aren't, aren't using those tools that have been given to them. They're not seeking out help. They're not trying to make each other better. They don't have that trust or that intimacy that they need to be an effective command team. It can just shatter a team. Um, you know, especially from back in the day. Brian, when you were down at A&S, what was the, do you remember like a pronounced example of an A&S team or an INDOC team, you know, back in the day, um, of failing because of that officer enlisted relationship? Or maybe, you know, maybe it was a toxic officer or maybe a toxic NCOIC, like, do you remember a specific example?
Brian:Um, all right, put me on the spot. Try to remember all these teams. So I think, you know, one of the biggest things that you can do as an officer is come prepared. Um, because I, I've seen it actually over the past couple of years, a lack of preparedness from the officer's standpoint. And we used to talk about it all the time, joke about it whenever it came to an officer, like all these guys show up and they could barely pass the pass test or they just like marginally past. And we kind of, you know, when we were going through, we saw officers as like, they were Greek Gods when they showed up and they were just complete studs. They were un-phased in any iteration of training. And you know, we had some that have kind of even failed the past when they showed up and they've, they're given extra chances because they've already gone through an additional selection. We don't want to talk about that whole selection portion and whether or not it was effective. But the main point of this is that if you're going to be an officer and going into, you know, the selection phase, you're going to be in charge of all these guys and you need to be the example for them to follow because just like I said, lead by example, that's always, always said anywhere you go. Um, this is especially true whenever you go to selection. So if you show up and you've already failed the PAST test, how much confidence do you think your team is going to have in you? Not only just making decisions every day, but decisions that are going to affect their lives. You can't keep control of the things that were in your control before you showed up, which are working out and you know, eating right and doing all that kind of stuff. Then how can you be an effective leader when you show up right there? So automatically you already have that amount of distrust amongst the team because they're just see you as kind of a S-bag that you couldn't come prepared.
Peaches:Did you say S-bag? Why don't you just say turd. You bring up a good point about the um, you know, people that take care of themselves. Have you guys ever noticed how, how at least Americans anyway, and I think pretty much the world puts people who are in shape on a pedestal. Hey, people that are able to get their own lives together and have their, have their poop in one bag, if you will.
Aaron:There's the S-bag that we were all their S's in one bag. You're losing control, man. Somebody, you know why it's cause we don't have an officer and listen and listen. Men should not be Brian. Go put on that stupid cadet rank.
Peaches:Well we are a sly and cunning beast that bears considerable watching. I lost it, I don't know where I was going with that anyway we tend to idolize or put people on pedestals that are in shape because they appear to have their stuff together. Maybe some of them do, maybe some of them don't. But it's your stuff together and don't be comfortable.
Aaron:Well and it works just as well on the enlisted side too. And when it comes time for that first time it'd be like you need to get all this stuff on that bus to go over to Finn. Right now you have two minutes. The first time that you have an NCO just kind of like freeze really. Like it's the worst. So you're just like all credibility out the window. Like it's a simple move, man. Make some stuff happen. Trent, what were you going to say?
Trent:Well I was just going to say like, cause I was thinking about this the other day about the weight thing. If you cut me off in traffic or something and you're a person, I'm probably going to give you a pass, but you don't like that person that cuts you off and I look in there and it's like just empty Burger King bags and you're like 400 pounds. My brain goes to terrible places. Like my judgment goes off the charts.
Brian:Because it's like that person obviously has nothing to do other than wait the Burger King line person is going to be productive somewhere.
Trent:I'm like, Oh, they're probably just in a rush to get to work or whatever. Like, cool, cool.
Peaches:I don't know. I don't care if they're hot or if they're in shape or not. Like, Hey man, look I'm not somebody that she can just like, I can't blow it off like it's like whatever, but I don't care what you look like, man. Treat people with respect.
Aaron:One of the chapter markers has to be Trent is biased against fat people, Trent doesn't like people who aren't in shape.
Trent:All you people that are upset at Adele for losing weight. You can go ahead and cancel me. I don't.
Aaron:Okay, well that seems like a good place to wrap it up today. It's been fun. I'm SrA Love signing off. But seriously guys, thanks for tuning in this week as we talked about those officer enlisted relationships, remember we talked about all those things that you're going to need to interface with that boss, with that officer, but that next line supervisor in order for you guys to work as a command team. So just like Brian said, we're peacocks. You gotta let him fly. But overall the officer's in charge or the NCO is in charge and that officer's in command. So once again, thanks for coming back to the team room. I'm going to open it up for some parting shots from the guys. Peaches, what you got?
Peaches:I don't have anything but just remember or I don't have anything. Obviously I have something about to say something. I don't have anything but the thing cosmic that I haven't already said. You're your team. Trust each other. Transparency and communicate often.
Trent:Get to know each other. You're always going to find something in common. Developing that base relationship that you can build the trust and everything else off of. You just got to spend some time together and get to know each other to build that, to make that team successful.
Aaron:Yeah, absolutely. I just want to say thanks for my parting shots. Just thanks to everybody for listening to the podcast. Go rate review. Find us on socials, go to Instagram, go to Facebook, find us at Ones Ready on Apple Podcasts and again, leave us a five star review, put a comment in there, go to the YouTube channel, check out the last a couple of podcasts that we did. They've been great topics and we got some more guests coming out, some more exclusive YouTube content, so make sure to go check out that stuff and I'll turn it over to Brian to close this out.
Brian:All right. Thanks again for everybody listening to the episode. We really appreciate you guys. Just like Aaron was saying, go hit up all those links and we're always here for you guys to help you out and let us know how you're progressing through the pipeline. We always like to hear stories of what's going on and kind of how you guys are implementing some of these things that we're talking about. Because this is a team right here. So, um, today we're talking about officer and enlisted relationships. So in that, in that Avenue, make sure that the officer is the person first of all, show up, ready to go and be the leader on the team and exemplify what you want your people to perform like and then give the direction. Don't micromanage, let the people fail. Let them figure out their left and rights as far as the team. And if you're that enlisted person, you need to know your left and rights and always be in that correct lane where you can be in a defensible position. And you can always say, I'm doing the right thing. I'm trying to help. And you're always busting your butt to make sure that team performs effectively. So, and with that, just to, like Trent was saying, you guys always need to know whether your officer or enlisted and you're in charge of anything, a leadership role, then you need to actually pay attention to your guys, know what they're feeling, know what they're doing, know what you're thinking. Know where everything is supposed to go. Know everyone's job and what kind of place they should be doing. Because just as you work up, like you're a ship captain, you have to know what they're doing on the bottom, low level deck. That way if you give an order, then you can be like, Oh, that's going to probably take him about, you know, 20, 30, 40 minutes or whatever, but be realistic and know that they're trying to learn their jobs. Everyone's trying to learn. So, um, just know a little bit about it but don't micromanage it. Um, the other thing is, um, just like we were talking about with the, uh, messing up and showing up, you always want to outperform and do your best to, uh, like I said, exemplifies a leadership position. If you guys have any questions or you want to hit us up, you're ready. And that's right now. You can always hit us up at the Instagram or email. We're always there for you guys. So again, thank you for listening to the episode and we will catch you guys on the next one. Train hard.