Team Secrets of the Navy SEALs by Anonymous

Author:Anonymous [Anonymous]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7407-8651-8
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing LLC
Published: 2011-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6 Lessons

Be a student of human interaction.

Do not take advantage of your Team!

Burnout will engender low morale.

Be mindful of your Team’s morale level.

Identify and quench burnout before it happens.

Motivate your Team to be the custodian of its own morale.

Know your people and their personal standards; deviation from those standards may indicate a looming or manifested problem.

False or petty rewards can often do more damage than good.

CHAPTER 7

Flexibly Inflexible

When I arrived in southern California to attend BUD/S, I was in great physical condition. I had been running, swimming, and lifting almost every day of the week. My very first physical evolution at BUD/S was a four-mile soft-sand conditioning run. I had been training in soft sand and felt that I was well prepared for the task. By the second mile of this instructor-led run, however, I was sucking wind like never before and attracting the concern of a couple of the instructors.

After a few weeks of this, my class proctor, the instructor in charge of the class, approached me. He explained that he could tell I was giving 110 percent, but that I was unable to stay with the front of the pack because I was running wrong. I gave him a puzzled look. I had played sports my entire life and thought that I was a good runner. He took the time to show me how to run properly, which was very uncomfortable at first. My entire life I had run with my arms pumping vigorously by my sides. He explained that all this did was tighten up my chest, restricting both its expansion and my oxygen-uptake efficiency. The revised technique was to let my arms relax by my sides with very little back and forth movement. If you run like I used to, try this new arm style. It took me several weeks to adapt and accept this change, but it made all the difference in the world. The lesson I learned is that what seems comfortable now may not always be the best or most effective way.

Flexibility is one of the major qualities required to cross over from the old managerial paradigm to the dynamic, fulfilling, and challenging environment of a Team leader. Nothing is absolute, and you must be ready to adjust when the need arises. It is when you leave the confines of archaic and restrictive thinking that you begin to recognize hidden potential in both your subordinates and yourself. You must develop a sense for what is and is not an acceptable level of deviation from the expected tier of performance.

Inflexibility is tantamount to stagnation, which is not conducive to progress. The ability to adapt and bring your Team with you is one of the traits of a great leader. Although I advocate flexibility, this in no way means that you should ever compromise your standards; that is where it pays to remain inflexible.

Do not fear change. For some, this will be hard to accept, because it requires departure from the traditional model of management, where ideas about people, their duties, and the roles of the leader are fixed.

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