Team Secrets of the Navy SEALs: The Elite Military Force's Leadership Principles for Business
144
Team Secrets of the Navy SEALs: The Elite Military Force's Leadership Principles for Business
144Paperback
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Overview
The business world can be ruthless, but with the team secrets of the “best of the best” you can expect fast results, improved cooperation, and production.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781616083427 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Skyhorse |
| Publication date: | 06/15/2012 |
| Pages: | 144 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.40(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Leading the Best
Navy SEAL Concepts for Leading Professionals and Team Building
Every moment of a SEAL's life is geared toward the development, education, and honing of the Team! The word "Team" encompasses everything from the sixteen-man platoon to our entire country and way of life. In the Teams, men work relentlessly with their fellow Frogmen and face incredible odds to accomplish their assigned tasks, whether this is the daily routine of gear maintenance in preparation for future operations or the planning and execution of a real-world mission. Most SEAL's transition to the private sector carrying the same ethos and unflappable attitude and demeanor, and apply it to their civilian lives. Many of my former Teammates are now top executives or successful business owners, applying what they learned and nurtured in the SEAL Teams to achieve positive results.
What would you think if your boss told you that you were going to push a boat out of an airplane at night and then jump out after it, deploying your own parachute and chasing the boat to the water with seven other people and without the aid of an overtly visible light source? As the bite of the cold night air, the rush of the wind tearing at your gear and stark darkness attempt to dull your senses, your honed skills and adrenaline "defog" your consciousness. The possibility of entangling your parachute with another jumper is extremely high in the violent and rapid evolution. The jump is too low to even bother bringing a reserve. Without words the seasoned Team finds their way to the boat which just splashed down. One by one the jumpers splash into the cold ocean. Next, you'll need to maneuver out of your parachute as the sea current turns your once life-saving parachute into a deadly sea anchor, capable of drowning the strongest waterman, and get the boat operational in ten minutes, engines mounted and running, because you have to pick up eight more men who are about to jump into the cold, dark night and splash into the water. Then you'll have navigate the open ocean to a point at which you will then need to paddle for about an hour so as to not alert anyone to your presence with the hum of a motor. Get in, get it done, and get out, all under the cloak of one night's darkness. A sixteen-man Team, two officers and fourteen enlisted men, complete all the planning, preparation, coordination, supervision, and execution of such a mission ... and that's your Monday and Tuesday.
Every day of this week and the next, and the next after that, you will be responsible for the lives of your crew, either in training or in combat. The only way you can survive is to trust your Team and be trusted by them. You can't think only of yourself and those factors affecting or stressing your life. Everyone's life depends on each member thinking as one. The "poor me" attitude is poison and is a major hurdle in any group dynamic.
This is my life, and this is how I survive. The principles of SEAL leadership and cohesiveness apply to all groups; and strong Teams, in business and in life, are ruthlessly effective in achieving their common goals.
I am currently serving my nineteenth year of active duty and will not use the real names of any of my brothers, specific Operation names, nor specific locations and times. It is my desire to remain anonymous, but thanks to the Internet, that is nearly impossible. Many of my closest friends are also still on active duty, and it would be inappropriate to proffer their identities.. Those who have gotten out are all private men and appreciate their anonymity and were never in it for the glory ... only the grave responsibility of our country's defense and to be part of the finest Team I have ever had the honor to be part of. I have built this book, however, with stories from my own experience. Lead by example, build a stronger Team, and, over time, you will create a successful business and career. This isn't a book of combat tactics or detailed war stories. It is a series of snapshots of the more than nineteen years of my military career and the trials and errors I have gone through during this chapter of my life. This is what I have found to be effective across a wide spectrum of challenging situations. This should be a quick read, and one I hope you revisit from time to time to refresh your memory and reacquaint yourself with the solid fundamentals of Team building and broadening. This will not be, nor should it be, the last book published on leadership. Continue to explore techniques and flex with the changes. There is room on the "lessons learned" pages to write your own. This book is the foundation for a working document on leadership.
Basic Philosophy of the Teams: Volunteer Program
To get a shot at SEAL training, you must exhibit initiative and determination. It isn't easy to get into BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL), which is the initial training program SEALs must go through. Determination is the key. Out of about every 300 men who say they want to be SEALs, probably 100 mean it, and only about twenty actually make the necessary effort. The day I tested, only five of seventeen sailors passed the initial screening for BUD/S. And even then, inclusion was not guaranteed. It took me over eight months to convince my command to let me go and secure orders to BUD/S.
Over a year after my initial screening I arrived in sunny Coronado, California, to attend BUD/S at the Naval Special Warfare Center. My class started with 129 men who swore they wouldn't quit. After seven months, 114 couldn't keep their word or were seriously injured.
The daily BUD/S schedule was part of the reason. In the First Phase, the initial aspects of Team building weed out those who do not desire to put forth the effort required to continue with training. The days and nights are filled with a series of physical and mental challenges, called evolutions, performed in a continuous rotation. Each shift brings fresh instructors, every one ready to dole out the next set of obstacles. During the rite of passage referred to as "Hell Week," usually the fifth or sixth week of training, a man will get no more than an hour and a half of sleep, total, from Sunday morning to Friday evening, all the while moving and thinking, nonstop. This is the "application process," and it reveals who really wants to be here and, more importantly, who possesses the required raw talent and intellect.
In the Second Phase, the physical standards get tougher, and an intense diving curriculum begins. The underwater aspect of SEAL operations is extremely serious, and those who don't have the physical stamina, or can't keep their wits about them underwater in the pitch dark, tend to volunteer to leave the program here. The academics get harder. This is the "first interview" phase. You want to be here, you have what it takes to be here, now ... we have a few questions for you.
The Third Phase demands that sailors reach the highest physical and mental standards. This is also the phase where they up the stakes by introducing live fire ranges, dynamic and static, as well as live land and underwater demolition, the root of our existence. However, not many men are lost during this phase, because those who would prefer another profession and those who could not meet the strength and academic requirements have already quit.
Throughout this training, SEAL instructors never let you forget that you are seeking membership in a volunteer organization. They realize that they may someday work with you and that their lives will depend on your competence. They have a vested interest in the quality of their students. In the meantime, they continually monitor those who are wavering and offer to help these men find a different niche in the Navy if it turns out that being a SEAL is not their priority.
Team Concepts for the Individual: Never Quit!
If you have been assigned a task, you had better seriously evaluate your ability to complete it beofre accepting it. There is no honor in undertaking a remarkably daunting task if you can't get it done correctly. This is not to say that you should shelter yourself in menial tasks to avoid the possibility of failure, but should carefully assess the situations at hand and take on any challenge you feel that, through the combined effort of you and your Team, you will be able to accomplish. Moreover, remember that once you have committed, you are in. If you suddenly find that you're in over your head, you had better sprout gills and come up with a way to complete the task properly. If you need to reset, do so after careful consideration of the consequences and after developing other possible solutions. Simply throwing your hands in the air ... like you, well, just don't care is admitting defeat and quitting.
The reasoning behind the intensity of any training program is, and should be, to identify those who are going to be there; ready to succeed when it counts. Job titles may sound glamorous, but you need to know who is going to be there when the Team needs them the most. Who in your group is the most qualified or best able to tackle a problem? If the person that usually collates your meeting handouts has a talent useful in solving a task someone else is struggling with, bring them into the fold and grow as a unit. You may be amazed at what you find waiting in the minds of those you might usually overlook.
You Are Only as Strong as Your Weakest Team Member
"Weakest" may simply refer to the Team member carrying the heaviest load. This can be directed or self-incurred. In a SEAL platoon, the communications man usually carries the most weight. Every man in the SEAL Platoon is ready to fight as any other. However, certain members carry an extra burden due to their specialty. The communicator is required to carry his radios, antennas, and extra batteries, all this in addition to the standard war fighting load required to be carried by all. The machine gunner must carry his heavy weapon and the mass amount of ammo required to feed his machine. These men are not weak, but will most likely be the slowest and most encumbered members. It goes without saying that each member will carry an extra battery and an extra 100-200 rounds of ammunition for the machine gunner. If the point man (usually the person with the lightest load) leading the platoon maintains a rapid pace, he will likely exhaust and unnecessarily wear out these crucial members of the unit.
A Team leader must have a reason for picking and tasking each member of the Team. Recognize, utilize, and capitalize on the attributes on which you based your choices. Make these choices and reasons apparent to the group so all know what the focus and intent is.
Surround yourself with "operators," those who perform, always being mindful of the difference between the person you just like to have around and the one you and your Team need to succeed. Job assignment is not a popularity contest; you should always choose the best person for each job. Personality is crucial in many positions; especially those positions that require interactions with others. Or maybe you need a person that 'lacks' some personality to handle situations that must remain devoid of emotion. All this said, pick by merit and application rather than popularity.
An important thing to remember: just because someone is new, that doesn't mean they will not be able to improve upon the way business is conducted. I have noticed that at times "old guys" will ignore the "new guys" simply because they are new. Never underestimate the value of a fresh, innovative, and perhaps even abstract point of view. Diversity is good and can strengthen the Team.
SEAL Training and Common Goals
SEAL instructors challenge themselves and each other to develop "innovative" techniques to embed the necessity for solid and cohesive teamwork from day one of training. Everything is done as a class, which is identified by that unique and sequential set of seemingly insignificant numerals. This number becomes your life, your burden, your salvation. A Frogman NEVER forgets his class number. It validates you with other SEALs and immediately identifies your spot in Naval Special Warfare history as the time stamp for your indoctrination into the brotherhood. The men eat as a class, move as a class, physically train as a class, learn as a class, suffer as a class, fail as a class, succeed as a class, celebrate as a class, and graduate as a class. If one man screws up (the weak link for that evolution), everyone joins him in performing the assigned penalty, thereby motivating the entire class to attend to the weak member's deficiencies. You fail as a Team and succeed as a Team. However, there are times when it is appropriate and necessary to address the individual or a small portion of your greater group as such. At times, if there is a noticeable disparity between particular segments of the class, instructors will give the least performing portion a bit of "extra instruction" while those whom performed better are rewarded with a relatively easier tasking. This is healthy competition which is also Team building. Those who have achieved are the positive example and set the bar higher, urging the others to excel. You must be aware of the weaker links but work together to improve their performance in the long run, rather than continually holding your excelling performers back.
A BUD/S class is broken down into Boat Crews of six or seven men. The crews are periodically reorganized when people quit, but this will not happen until the instructor staff is ready to do so. So, as people fail, the remaining members of the Team are required to endure the increased burden until they can gain new members. After the reorganization they must learn quickly to work the newer members into the Team's cohesiveness and work through personality differences in order to succeed. As the name suggests, each Team has the charge of a boat. An IBS (inflatable boat, small) resembles a white-water raft. Two of the most memorable Team-building exercises executed as a boat crew were Log P.T. (physical training) and surf passage (with the IBS). Both of these tasks are capable of causing serious injuries and nearly impossible to perform without solid and cooperative actions.
Log P.T. is done as a Boat Crew with a fifteen-foot section of a telephone pole. The instructors run the men through a series of exercises with the log, each requiring the efforts of the entire Boat Crew. If one person slacks off, the others will be required to tackle the added burden until completion, or until motivating the slacker to get back in the game.
For example, in such exercises as Boat Crew sit-ups, each man cradles his section of log in his arms, and at the instructor's command will be required to perform a simple sit-up. If everyone shifts their weight and strains their muscles in unison, this task is doable, but is extremely grueling after an hour or so. Once any members begin to lose the will or mental toughness to continue, the seed of failure is sown. Another Team building exercise is to have the crew stand in a line, front to back; the instructor tells you which shoulder they want the log on. The crew needs to work together to get it up, over their heads, and back to the proper shoulder. Easy, right? Once fatigue takes its grip, the simple can seem daunting. Say not everyone lifts at the same time, starting a ripple that shifts the weight rapidly and becomes hard to control. Releasing the weight too early can cause the log to come crashing down on a man's head. Often you find that you and your crew are holding the log at arm's length over your heads until the instructor gets tired. My personal favorite was the foot races in soft sand with the log on your shoulders. In order for the entire crew to "get on the log," they'd have to turn their bodies forty-five degrees to one side, which made it even harder to run. Feet and legs crash together as everyone attempts to match the other's gait. The crew is jammed on the log, and it takes maximum Team coordination to prevent feet from entangling and bringing the crew to the ground in a pile of limbs followed closely by the three-hundred-pound log. Your mind tells you that your arms and shoulders are depleted of strength, and many crews would fail this test repeatedly. Those who stick around continually experience these evolutions and learn that it is not the muscles that give out, but the mind. Crews could not leave until they completed this task. I can remember occasions when it took my crew a dozen attempts before success; we would wonder how we got it the twelfth time but couldn't do it the first time. That is what BUD/S and Team building is all about: persevering until success!
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Team Secrets of the NAVY SEALs"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Robert Needham.
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction vii
Leading the Best 1
Know Who You've Got 16
Setting the Stage 28
The Pragmatic Pedestal 38
Have an Open-Door Policy for Opportunity 47
Handling Burnout 58
Flexibly Inflexible 69
The Menace of Micromanagement 79
Preventive Maintenance 88
The Four Links 99
Teammates, Not Lackeys 111
What Is Expected from You 118
Conclusion 126