“I’m sure you’ve heard the term ‘leadership capital’ before,” I continued. “As a leader, you only have so much authority that you can spend, and you need to choose wisely where you apply it. It seems to me you are expending a great deal of your leadership capital on cell phones when it might be much better utilized elsewhere. — 86: 1280-1282
“Task saturated” was a term we used in the SEAL Teams to describe how an individual, or a team, would get overwhelmed when multiple problems were encountered simultaneously. They couldn’t properly Prioritize and Execute. Trying to process too much information at once, they broke down and either failed to take any action or made a bad decision that put them at risk, along with the team or the mission. — 96: 1423-1426
I explained that one of the things that makes it so hard to fire someone is the leader’s knowledge that they have not done everything to actually lead a poor performer. As leaders, we feel bad when we haven’t done enough: We haven’t trained. We haven’t mentored. We haven’t led. And that makes us feel guilty—and rightly so. — 108: 1617-1619
As SEALs, we had SOPs for just about everything we did: the way we lined up and loaded our vehicles, our vehicle and foot patrol formations, the methodologies we used to clear buildings, the way we handled prisoners and dealt with wounded SEALs—the list goes on and on. But those SOPs didn’t constrain us on the battlefield. On the contrary, they gave us freedom. The disciplined SOPs were a line to deviate from, and we had the freedom to act quickly based on those procedures. — 179: 2683-2686
“They have to understand why—but that why has to have a thread that ties back to them, to what is in it for them,” I told him. “And how do I do that?” he asked. “How can I make them care about the company’s profits?” “You have to think it through,” I said. “It’s like this. If you can capture this data that you want, you will be able to better arm both technicians in the field and your salespeople, right?” “Absolutely. That’s the whole point,” the ops manager agreed. “And once the technicians and salespeople are armed, they can do a better job, right?” I continued. “Definitely,” he answered. “Okay,” I said. “Now follow me: Armed with this data, the technicians will be able to provide better and faster customer service, and the salespeople will be able to sell more product to more customers. When we provide better service and sell more products, our business grows. When our business grows, we make more money—” “That’s what I said! But how does that help?” the ops manager interrupted. “Listen,” I told him. “When the company makes more money, we can invest more money in advertising and infrastructure. Once we put more money into advertising and infrastructure, we will gain even more customers and be able to support them even better. The better we perform as a company, the more customers we acquire. The more customers we acquire, the more work there is for technicians, which means overtime and overtime pay. And once the company maxes that out, we will need more technicians. The more technicians we need, the more we have to pay them to be here. So this means down the line, we will increase pay for technicians, especially experienced ones. And lastly, the more technicians and clients we have, the more team leaders and regional supervisors we will need. This opens up a pathway to advancement for every technician at this company. So profitability of the company not only puts money into the pockets of the owners—which the frontline technicians probably don’t care too much about—but more important, it impacts the technicians directly: it opens up opportunity for more pay, higher salaries, and a pathway for career advancement. That’s the thread that ties all of this together and aligns everyone at the company—the corporate leadership team right down to the field technicians. That’s leadership.” The operations manager nodded. The light had come on. It was clear. — 204: 3068-3089
Choose at most the three or four most probable contingencies for each phase, along with the worst-case scenario. This will prepare the team to execute and increase the chances of mission success. — 241: 3617-3618