+1: #245 On a Bad Team?

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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another optimize plus one. In our last plus one, Navy SEALs Jocko Willink and Leif Babin told us that leadership is all about extreme ownership. No excuses, no blaming ever. They tell us that ultimately there are no bad teams per se, only bad leaders. To bring the point home, they tell us a story about guys in boats. Imagine Navy SEAL training. You're already exhausted from weeks of basic training. Now it's time for Hell week. And one of the most brutal aspects of the training is when the aspiring seals are split into boat crews, each with seven guys. Each team gets an old school World War II era inflatable boat that weighs 200 pounds. They need to carry this boat up and over 20 foot sand berms and run with it for miles. Then they get to paddle it out to the ocean, dump it over so everyone's out and freezing wet, and then paddle it back in. And they're always competing with everyone else. If you lose, you have to go through extra bonus brutal stuff. While the winners get to take the next race off, the instructors constantly remind everyone it pays to be a winner. So with that in mind, imagine boat crew 2. These guys win every single race. They're simply crushing it. And although they're physically hammered, they're actually smiling throughout the process. Then we have boat crew 6. These guys are losing every single race. To put it mildly. They are simply not crushing it. And as you can imagine, they're not too happy about it, cursing and blaming one another for all their problems. So each crew has a leader. Boat Crew 6's leader is convinced that they're losing because his team sucks. He's certain that Boat Crew 2 is simply made up of the best guys and his team isn't. Now, our wise instructor knows that there's no such thing as a bad team, just a bad leader. So he devises a little experiment. He commands the leaders to swap teams. The leader from the always winning boat crew 2 would now switch places with the leader from the always losing Boat Crew six. What happens? Well, the worst boat crew suddenly became the best. They went from losing nearly every race to winning nearly every race. As Jocko and Leif remind us, there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. Today's +1. Let's shine the spotlight on you, whether it's at home or at work. Do you ever think you're on a bad team. Well, guess what? You're the problem. Seriously, Quit blaming and criticizing and start taking extreme ownership for the situation. Find solutions, make it better. Lead and when.

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