of the change itself.
The purpose of moving is to gain the high ground; to adapt amidst a changing threat toward a new situation based upon a new stimulus and thus create new meaning. However, your ability to move—to create value—depends on the people with whom you work, their individual and team-based competencies, their internal drivers for excellence, and their support network. This is where performance and leadership come into play.
Continuing with the above hypothetical situation, the first goal of the leader is to make sure that everybody is shooting in the right direction, and toward the same end-state such that everybody’s efforts align toward the same purpose. There are a few assumptions made in this statement of “everybody is shooting in the right direction” that are important to highlight here. When people, teams, or companies share the same purpose it is presumed that:
1 Communication is clear. There is no ambiguity as to whom the enemy or competitor is, their position, and what resources they are employing against you. Every employee must be able to identify the battle because if you know your enemy, then you know how to defeat him. It’s when you don’t necessarily know your enemy intimately enough that the unforeseen arises and takes a bite out of your ass.
2 The team is working in alignment. The muzzle of each team member’s rifle must be pointed in the same direction to maximize potential, reduce wasted efforts, and share the same purpose. Whether you are in a gunfight, a pricing war, or a product battle, every second you lose is three more seconds you now need to advance—one second to collect yourself, one second to catch up, and another to get ahead.
3 “Winning” has been defined. There is no confusion about what success looks like, and everybody is on the same page to get there.
4 Operating environment is understood before moving. At some point, one side will have to turn the page and gain higher ground, conduct a flanking maneuver, or create some sort of change in an effort to tip the scale in their favor. A systemic understanding of the competitive landscape allows you to beat the enemy to the metaphorical high ground.
5 Skill and performance standards exist. Of course, if you want your top sniper to take the shot or your number one negotiator to land your next deal, it is expected that he or she will do so. It’s an ungrateful responsibility, but one for which physical, mental, and emotional performance demands require a standard of excellence.
Once the team is aligned and shooting in the right direction, you will need to relocate and create a new formation since the enemy already knows your current position. So, what do you do? You change. You adapt and repurpose the team in such a way that the right people fall into the right places and you have the right fit. This also entails removing the wrong people (although not in the middle of a firefight), which only comes after you identify the performance-based skills (i.e. behaviors) that each member brings to the table and how they help or hinder your team’s objectives.
Meanwhile, back in the gunfight, your team’s effectiveness is decreasing by the second, so you want to keep a heavy volley of fire on the enemy to keep him suppressed. In other words, you don’t want any lulls in the exchange of fire. To do this, the heavy weapons guys (.60 gunners) need to “sing” with each other at a rhythmic pace such that only one heavy weapon is firing at a time. If both fire, then you run the risk of both your heavy weapons running out of ammo simultaneously and the team revealing itself for the smaller, inferior force they really are. A constant volley of heavy fire deceivingly portrays yourselves as resourcefully superior and helps you appear much larger than the smaller force you are. There needs to be somebody with an overall view of the battlefield that can see and anticipate threats before they arrive and before they make your team obsolete. This is the essence of communication—to have complete awareness of the battlefield/industry such that every contributing member/department has the right information to make decisions. This is also the essence of effective leadership.
Shoot, Move, Communicate
We have a saying on the Teams: “Shoot, move, communicate.” It’s the essence of how we function together, and the lessons of “shoot, move, communicate” carry over to the business world. Shooting is a very technical skill that requires a complete understanding of the fundamentals (body positioning, breathing, trigger squeeze, and follow-through), and environmental factors (wind direction and sun position). Together, they all contribute to the myriad sources of information that you must consider to make the right decision, and pull that trigger at the most opportune time so that the bullet can find a home. To shoot is to make a decision based on a confluence of information. To actually pull the trigger is to take action, to lead, and to create value for others that inspires behavior.
Now, the only way to advance your performance from beginner to intermediate to advanced (to badass) is to not only grasp the fundamentals, but to apply them. Every. Single. Day. This requires not only incredible amounts of discipline, focus, self-awareness, and social awareness, but also the ability to harness and collectively apply them through one’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual capacities. All of these things together determine performance.
While shooting is performance-based criteria that defines a SEAL’s action, moving is our adaptation—our ability to change based on a need. This could take the form of physical adaptation (changing locations in a firefight, for example), personal adaptation (changing opinions or behaviors), or organizational restructuring (changing organizational culture or strategy). Whatever the impetus or the type of movement, the one constant is that to move is to learn, as you shift from what you once knew to be right into the unchartered territory that you now believe to be the new right. Humility is fundamental here, too, as it’s what enables you to release your previously held mental models and move forward.
Finally, there’s communicate. Communication is more than just the who, what, or why of a message. To communicate effectively entails a “we, not me” focus, and it is what inspires the action of the aforementioned elements. You will see the principle of communication revisited again and again throughout the stories in this book, for knowledge sharing is the lifeblood of any individual, team, or organization. To communicate effectively is not only to fulfill an obligation, but also to be a good team member; to be proactive and share anticipatory situations before they unfold so as to build context among the team. It is also what fuels strong leadership, another cornerstone of SEAL-style performance.
From the hypothetical gunfight scenario above, you can see that a well-developed plan means little in the face of bullets and suicide bombers. It requires comprehensive skill and insurmountable will on behalf of every team member to turn that well-developed plan into a well-executed mission and realize it in the face of the unknown. A lack of physical competence to perform or learn a new skill, for instance, does nothing to build one’s confidence, which falls under both mental and emotional capacities. As a mental capacity, confidence comes in the form of self-talk, positive affirmations that in turn build one’s emotional capacity. Similarly, for the emotional component, self-confidence helps us feel more competent because, by very definition, we know we can rely on ourselves when given a task that we know well. Needless to say, you can see how the four pillars are all intertwined together and inextricably linked.
The premise here is two things. First, whichever side can shoot, move, and communicate together, faster is the one that will win the fight. The critical component here—of shooting, moving, and communicating—is ensuring you’re doing so effectively. Shooting more bullets, communicating more often, or moving in the wrong direction are no good without a meaningful purpose and the skill and will to pursue it. Look at it this way: as a rule of thumb, shooting without communicating the direction in which your muzzle is aimed while bullets are flying is never a good idea. Similarly, you would never just move—effectively—from point A to point B in a gunfight, merger, or negotiation without communicating your current position or your intended destination.
The second premise is that no single component achieves
