Americans typically associate the Navy SEALs with individualism: heroic mental toughness, self-discipline, and legendary physical fitness. Just look at the titles of the most popular books written about the SEALs:
- "8 weeks to SEALFIT: A Navy SEAL's Guide to Unconventional Training for Physical and Mental Toughness"
- "Breaking BUD/S: How regular guys can become NAVY SEALs"
- "NAVY SEAL: Self Discipline: How to become the toughest warrior"
We like focusing on ourselves. But if can take a concerted effort to be a better community-member, teammate, or leader.
So it was intriguing when SEAL commanders Jocko Willink and Leif Babin published their book, "Extreme Ownership: How Navy SEALs lead and win." Allowing a more intimate look at how their organization creates effective teams, below were my two biggest takeaways:
So it was intriguing when SEAL commanders Jocko Willink and Leif Babin published their book, "Extreme Ownership: How Navy SEALs lead and win." Allowing a more intimate look at how their organization creates effective teams, below were my two biggest takeaways:
It seems as though there’s always an excuse.
As a coach, it’s easy to pass blame up or down the "chain of
command." If an athlete makes a mistake, it must be her fault (she needed to
listen better, or work harder). The reverse happens with athletes. If I’m not
getting the playing time I want, or the recognition I think I deserve, it’s the
coach’s fault (he doesn’t know what he’s doing).
The problem in either scenario is the same: we’re stripped
of our power. Every time we pass blame we become more powerless in creating the
change we seek.
Jocko Willink, a Navy SEAL commander, describes a battle he led in Iraq which was
poorly organized by his commanders and poorly executed by his team. The result
was that one of his SEALs was wounded in a firefight with a teammate
(friendly-fire, or “blue-on-blue” in SEAL terms). It’s the most horrific
scenario a SEAL can imagine.
It would have been easy for Willink to pass the blame up or
down the chain of command. Realistically, he was not at fault. But instead, he
did the opposite:
“I stood up before the group. “Whose fault was this?” I asked to a roomful of teammates.
After a few moments of silence, the SEAL who had mistakenly engaged the Iraqi soldier spoke up: “It was my fault. I should have positively identified my target.”
“No,” I responded, “It wasn’t your fault. Whose fault was it?” I asked the group again.
“It was my fault,” said the radioman from the sniper element. “I should have passed our position sooner.”
“Wrong,” I responded. “It wasn’t your fault. Whose fault was it?” I asked again.
“It was my fault,” said another SEAL, who was a combat adviser with the Iraqi Army clearance team. “I should have controlled the Iraqis and made sure they stayed in their sector.”
“Negative,” I said. “You are not to blame.” More of my SEALs were ready to explain what they had done wrong and how it had contributed to the failure. But I had heard enough.
“You know whose fault this is? You know who gets all the blame for this?” … Finally, I took a deep breath and said, “There is only one person to blame for this: me. I am the commander. I am responsible for the entire operation. As the senior man, I am responsible for every action that takes place on the battlefield. There is no one to blame but me. And I will tell you this right now: I will make sure that nothing like this ever happens again.”
There are no bad
teams, only bad leaders
Division III coaches are regularly told that the only way to
get better is to recruit better athletes. The NCAA doesn’t allow us enough time
with our athletes to help them get better, so we might as well just focus on
finding more talent.
There’s certainly a lot of truth in that. Recruiting talented
athletes is the quickest and most obvious way to create a successful program at
any level. But taken to the extreme, it also creates a culture in which
athletes don’t feel valued; where their improvement is given less thought than
finding the next athletes to come in and replace them. Done poorly, a vicious cycle of frustration ensues.
The most rigorous part of Navy SEAL training is known as "Hell Week". Spanning five-and-a-half days, SEAL candidates run more than 200 miles, perform 20 hours-a-day of physical training, while sleeping less than four hours throughout. It's estimated that only 25% make it through.
In one scene, as told by commander Leaf Babin, SEAL candidates participate in "boat crew races", a contest in which teams paddle their boats through violent surf, return, and head-carry the boats back to the starting line: “Throughout this particular Hell Week, one boat crew dominated the competition: Boat Crew II. They won or nearly won every single race. They pushed themselves hard every time, working in unison and operating as a team. Boat Crew II had a strong leader, and each of the individual boat crew members seemed highly motivated and performed well.
Meanwhile, Boat Crew IV placed dead last in virtually every race, often lagging far behind the rest of the class. Each boat crew member focused on his own individual pain and discomfort, and the boat crew leader was no exception.
The boat crew leader, a young and inexperienced officer, was getting even more attention. As the leader, he bore the responsibility for his boat crew’s poor performance. Yet he seemed indifferent, as though fate had dealt him a poor hand: a team of underperformers who, no matter how hard he tried, could not get the job done.
Now, Senior Chief offered an interesting solution to Boat Crew IV's atrocious performance: "Let's swap out the boat crew leaders and see what happens."
Having received the direction to swap places, each boat crew leader went to his new position in the opposite boat crew and stood by for the next race ... We watched the boat crews sprint over the berm carrying their boats, then hurry down to the surf zone and into the dark water.
A half-mile down the beach, as the instructors' trucks followed, the boat crews paddled back into shore. As the boats came in on the headlights, the numbers were clearly visible. Boat Crew VI was in the lead and maintained first place all the way across the finish line, just ahead of Boat Crew II. Boat Crew IV had won the race."