A SEAL Team 6 trainer uses a performance-versus-trust matrix to show why high performers who lack trust become toxic team members. Companies measure performance easily through sales numbers but rarely measure trust, so they promote people who undermine group cohesion into leadership roles.
Chapters
SEAL Team 6 is elite amongst the SEALs, right? You have to be in the regular SEALs for at least 5 years before you can even apply to be in SEAL Team 6. So it is the elite of the elite when you talk about high-performing teams, right? And I had the opportunity to sit down with the head of training for SEAL Team 6. And I asked him a very simple question. How do you choose who goes from the SEALs into SEAL Team 6? Because they're all high, high, high, high, high performers. How do you choose who gets on this team? And he pulls out a piece of paper and he draws an x-y axis. And on the vertical, he writes the word performance. And on the horizontal, he writes the word trust. And he explains the way he defines performance is how good are you at your job, obviously. And the way he defines trust is what kind of person are you, right? The way they put it is I may trust you with my life, but do I trust you with my money or my wife? So I would go into battle with you, but I'm not going to trust you in a time of personal need, right? So that's how they define the difference. And as he explained it to me, he says, everybody wants this person, the high performer of high trust, obviously. Nobody wants this person, the low performer of low trust, obviously. What they have learned is that this person here, the high performer of low trust is a toxic team member. And they would rather have a medium performer, sometimes even a low performer of high trust, over the high performer of low trust. And the problem with high performers of low trust is it's easy to measure their— especially in business, because it's dollars and cents. It's easy to measure them. Sales numbers, whatever it is, right? But we don't— and the other problem in business is we have a million metrics to measure someone's performance. That's how we usually define the meritocracy. But we have negligible to no metrics to measure somebody's trustworthiness. And if you keep promoting a toxic team member, eventually that toxic team member becomes a toxic leader. And now the impact is even greater. And so I love it when companies tell me that they're performance-driven, blah, blah, blah, right? Because I look at literally one of the highest-performing organizations on the planet, and they value trust over performance. So why do we have it differently? Right? And I think there's a lot to learn. Plus, the way that businesses interpret that very story, right, is individual performance. And the way that the SEALs interpret that story is team performance. They call themselves team members. And this is toxic team member. It's about group performance. The SEALs only think in terms of group performance. Will this person hurt the group? Not will this person help themselves? And so we have to do a better job as leaders of understanding the different skill sets that help the group, um, uh, rather than help themselves. Because sometimes, uh, sometimes your highest performing people are your worst team players, and sometimes your greatest team players are not your best individual performers, but they help the whole team rise.
