Extreme Ownership

As you may have guessed by the title, this book is all about taking 100% (!!!) responsibility for E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. in our lives.

When things don’t go well, what do YOU do?

Whether it’s at home or the office, do you blame the people around you for the problems or do you take EXTREME OWNERSHIP?

Know this: The easiest way to know that you are *not* taking Extreme Ownership is when you are BLAMING someone (or something) else for whatever problems you may be experiencing in your life.

Let’s quit blaming. That’s step 1 in taking extreme ownership.

Here’s a powerful story to bring the point home.

That’s from Chapter 2: “No Bad Team, Only Bad Leaders.”

Leif tells us the fascinating story of the SEAL Hell Week training he supervised.

Bare in mind that Hell Week comes after several weeks of the SEAL basic training course. And, remember that, as Leif tells us, “Hell Week is not a fitness test. While it did require some athletic ability, every student that survived the weeks of BUD/S training prior to Hell Week had already demonstrated adequate fitness to graduate. It was not a physical test but a mental one.”

Alright. So here’s the story.

One of the most brutal aspects of the training is when the students are split into “boat crews”—each with seven guys. Each team gets assigned an old-school World War II-era inflatable boat that weighs 200 pounds. They need to carry this boat up and over 20-feet-high 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. (“It pays to be a winner!” the instructors would constantly remind everyone.)

So, apparently, Boat Crew II just crushed it. They won every.single.race. Boat Crew VI, on the other hand, LOST every.single.race.

While the Boat Crew II team worked together flawlessly and, although freezing and exhausted, they actually had smiles on their faces. Boat Crew VI was the opposite. They were cursing and blaming one another for all their problems.

I should mention that each boat crew had a leader—the most senior guy who was responsible for getting the complicated instructions on what to do in the next assignment and leading their team through the process.

The leader of Boat Crew VI was convinced that he was losing because his team sucked. He was certain that Boat Crew II was simply made up of the best guys and his team was not.

Now, our wise instructor knew that there was no such thing as a bad team, just a bad leader.

So, he devised a little experiment—commanding the leaders to swap teams. The leader from the always-winning Boat Crew II would now switch places with the leader from the always-losing Boat Crew VI.

What happened?

Well, as you can probably guess, the worst boat crew suddenly became the best. They went from losing nearly every race to winning nearly every race.

→ No Bad Team, Only Bad Leaders.

“The concept that there were no bad teams, only bad leaders was a difficult one to accept but nevertheless a crucial concept that leaders must fully understand and implement to enable them to most effectively lead a high-performance team. Leaders must accept total responsibility, own problems that inhibit performance, and develop solutions to those problems. A team could only deliver exceptional performance if a leader ensured the team worked together toward a focused goal and enforced high standards of performance, working to continuously improve. With a culture of Extreme Ownership within the team, every member of the team could contribute to this effort and ensure the highest levels of performance.”

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?

Guess what. You’re the problem. (HAH.) Quit blaming and criticizing and start taking EXTREME OWNERSHIP for the situation.

Find solutions. Make it better. Lead. Win.

P.S. Keep this gem from Darren Hardy’s Entrepreneur Roller Coaster (see Notes) in mind: “Here’s a secret: People don’t go as far as they can. They don’t work as hard as they can either. They aren’t as disciplined as possible. They aren’t as positive-minded or enthusiastic as they can be. They’re only as fast and disciplined as you are.

As the leader, you set the pace. You create the standards. It doesn’t matter if you’re leading salespeople, engineers, or creatives. They will only be as disciplined, driven, focused, and consistent as the person leading them. The speed, quality, and culture of the pack are determined by the leader. That means the most important, but also the most underused and violated, principle of leadership is lead by example. …

In 1944, the Allied generals gathered to discuss their battle plans for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. After listening to how each general was going to send his soldiers into battle, an angered Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander, slammed his fist down, stood up, and placed a piece of string in the middle of the table.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘Do you see this string? This string is like an army. Push it from behind, and it doubles up on itself—you get nowhere. To drive it forward you have to pull it from the front, and it will follow you in perfect order.’”

What’s your #1 project or mission right now?

This is it: ___________________________________

Got it? Great.

Are you a TRUE BELIEVER?

Do you have a RESOLUTE BELIEF in the mission?

Do you *KNOW* you can achieve it and believe it’s a worthy goal to go after?

If not, as leaders we need to get that clarity or adjust our mission.

If we don’t truly believe, there’s *no way* we’re going to effectively lead. Period.

P.S. Remember our Motivation Equation? The #1 variable is EXPECTANCY. You have to believe.

P.P.S. I’ve mentioned it a number of times since discovering the stat and I’m going to repeat it again here. Workers who have leaders that inspire hope in a better future are engaged 69% of the time. Those who do not have leaders that inspire hope are engaged a paltry 1% of the time.

That is crazy. And, the same rules apply here. If YOU want to be engaged in your life, you need to BELIEVE that things are going to work. If you want to lead your TEAM (biz/fam/whatever) you need to believe in the mission and share that belief. Are you?

That’s from the chapter called “Prioritize and Execute.”

Reminds me of wisdom from another SEAL Commander, Mark Divine. In The Way of the SEAL (see Notes), he tells us we need to “simplify the battlefield” and maintain “front-sight focus.”

Here’s how he puts it: “Maintaining a front-sight focus has a calming and confidence-building effect. A SEAL knows he must simply engage one target at a time and not shift focus until he’s dispatched that target. SEALs don’t like to waste ammo—we try to make each round count. This is far more effective than trying to engage multiple targets (or worry about them at the same time!). Admittedly, our training allows us to do this very fast and with incredible precision, making it appear as if we’re tackling multiple targets simultaneously. Ultimately, all great successes follow this exact process: Identify a goal, and then achieve it by knocking down one target after another, each one the right target for that shot. When you learn to do this with the focus and precision of a SEAL, understanding which targets to engage and how to avoid distractions, your success will skyrocket. …

Without front-sight focus, you’re bound to get derailed and end up mired in common, day-to-day activities and thinking. Common thinking in combat can get you killed, but in everyday life it will simply kill any chance of your operating at the high level we expect for the Way of the SEAL.”

When feeling overwhelmed, slow down. Simplify your battlefield.

Leif shares the story of how he applied this to the business environment and asked this question to a leader who was engaged in too many battles: “‘Of all the initiatives, which one do you feel is the most important?’ I asked. ‘Which one is your highest priority?’”

Identify the next key domino you need to knock over.

Then go crush it.

Prioritize and Execute.

First: Three alarm clocks?!?

Now THAT is Extreme Ownership. :0

That Idea is from a chapter called “Discipline Equals Freedom.”

Jocko tells us that “By discipline, I mean an intrinsic self-discipline—a matter of personal will. The best SEALs I worked with were invariably the most disciplined.”

In other words, a fierce commitment to areté.

We want to be aware of the “decisive moments” in our day-to-day lives. We need to win those “fight-thrus”—choosing to step forward into growth and show up as our better selves.

Jocko talks about the fact that, paradoxically, this extreme discipline actually leads to more freedom and more flexibility. With a solid base of disciplined procedures, they had the freedom to adapt a small portion of their approach when the situation demanded.

Plus: “Last, and perhaps most important, when things went wrong and the fog of war set in, we fell back on our disciplined procedures to carry us through the toughest challenges on the battlefield.”

When YOU are faced with your biggest challenges, you want to be able to fall back on your disciplined consistency on your fundamentals—providing you with the stability to power you through the inevitable challenges.

Unfortunately, too often we STOP doing the very things that keep us in the game during the most challenging times when we need them the most.

Let’s not do that. Here’s to setting our three alarm clocks and experiencing the freedom that comes from discipline.

Those are the last words of the book.

→ “Leading people is the most challenging and, therefore, the most gratifying undertaking of all human endeavors.”