I’ve been reading a book titled Extreme Ownership written by former Navy SEALS Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. I’m fascinated by a story Leif tells about an experience he had while he was working as a Navy SEAL instructor in Coronado, California. It occurred during the infamous Hell Week of SEAL training. This is essentially Leif’s story, as paraphrased by me.
During Hell Week students are grouped into boat crews of seven men. Each crew is assigned a large rubber boat weighing 200 lbs. that only becomes heavier and heavier as it filled with water and sand throughout the exercises. They are required to carry these boats over the streets, through ropes, and over telephone poles and walls in the obstacle course. Once they reach the ocean they’re required to paddle through the powerful crashing waves, often capsizing and scattering students and paddles across the beach like a shipwreck.
During these boat exercises, competitions are built in where “it pays to be a winner”. This means that the winning boat crew gets to take a short break from the grueling, physical, nonstop competition. The losing crews have to do additional exercises…..however, the crew that comes in last is subjected to especially grueling penalties by the instructors and is singled out for heavy punishment. In a word, “it sucks to come in last”!
During one particular Hell Week, a dramatic division began to show. Boat Crew II worked as a team and won every competition. They compensated for each other’s weaknesses, helped each other, took pride in winning and reaped the rewards. Boat Crew VI on the other hand placed last in virtually every race, often lagging far behind the rest of the class. They were singled out again and again for punishment. The men on this crew were operating as individuals, furious and frustrated at their teammates. They were yelling and cursing at each other, accusing the other team members of not pulling their weight.
Suddenly the Senior Chief instructor was struck with an idea. “Let’s swap out the boat crew leaders from the best and the worst crews and see what happens.”
They did this and 2 amazing things happened:
1. Boat Crew VI won the very next race.
2. In every race that followed, Boat Crews II and VI were hot competitors for first place.
Boat Crew VI got a great new leader and began to win. Boat Crew II kept winning because the culture established by the 1st leader was carried forward…..even though they had a switch to a poorer leader.
In Leif’s own words: “THERE ARE NO BAD TEAMS, ONLY BAD LEADERS! How is it possible that switching a single individual – only the leader – had completely turned around the performance of an entire group? The answer: leadership is the single greatest factor in any team’s performance. Whether the team succeeds or fails is all up to the leader. The leader’s attitude sets the tone for the entire team. The leader drives performance – or doesn’t. And this applies not just to the most senior leader of an overall team, but to the junior leader of teams within the team.”
What type of leader are you? Is your team winning? If not, are you willing to look in the mirror and take the blame?
Are you choosing your junior leaders because they are bi-lingual or are you closely watching your teams and elevating the best leaders?
A single change in leadership had a massive, immediate effect on the Navy SEAL trainees of Boat Crew VI. Today is the day you can bring massive improvement to your dairy farm or business. Sit down, grab a coffee, and grade all the leaders in your organization from the top down. Here’s another thing: START BY GRADING YOURSELF!
DOC'S RUMINATIONS Insights from Dr. Kevin Hoogendoorn, DVM, Creator and Owner of the ZISK dairy app.
