Extreme Ownership: Notes on Chapter 2

This is part 2 of my personal notes on Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. I hope that others may also find this useful.

You can start with my notes on chapter 1 here.

Chapter 2: No bad teams, only bad leaders

Military example

BUD/S Hell Week is not a fitness test. It is a mindset test.
Can you survive 72 hours of exercise? Most people drop out due to exhaustion, sickness, or injury.
Only 40 out of 101 remained. Many gifted athletes had to quit.
Those who had made it through realized that they could push themselves mentally and physically much further than most ever thought possible through the pain, misery, and exhaustion of days without sleep.
Remember the moment when you felt most overwhelmed and remind yourself that you can survive through these circumstances.
Accelerated stoicism internalization.

As part of the training, teams have to carry boats around on their heads around an obstacle course.
Shortest crew was called the "Smurf crew." They had a bright blue Smurf painted on the bow of their boat.
Boat leaders received the most scrutiny from instructors.
Boat carrying race winners were awarded with being able to sit out the next race. Every exercise was a team based competition.
It paid to be a winner and really sucked to be a loser.
Being last = receiving punishments.
Boat crew leaders are briefed by the SEAL instructor before each race about the specifics of the next course.
"Stand by... bust 'em!"

Formula of the successful crew

Push themselves hard every time.
Work in unison and operating as a team.
Strong leader with each individual being highly motivated.
Compensate for each other's weaknesses.
Help each other.
Take pride in winning.
Smile.
Maintain high morale.

The winning team A was rewarded with rest, so they kept on winning.
The losing team B received punishment for their poor performance, so they spiraled down to more and more losses.
Then the leaders between the teams were swapped. Only the leaders changed. The rest of the team stayed the same.
Leader A was able to lead team B to victory. Team B still performed will due to efficiency gained under good leadership, but was not as efficient after given worse leader B.
Whether a team succeeds or fails depends on the leader.
The leader's attitude sets the tone for the entire team.
This applies to all levels up and down the chain of command.

To lead people to go harder than they thought possible, focus on immediate goals that you can see physically, not far off abstract goals. This is more effective for improving morale and focus.
Live in the moment + focus on immediate task = long term success
Focus on the signal, not the noise.
Yell less, encourage more.
Don't shelter underperforming team members from the intructors. If you carry the underperformers to success, then they would also hold back real missions later and result in casualties. This is misguided loyalty.
Take extreme ownership as the leader to notice this.

A team could only deliver exceptional performance if a leader

• ensured the team worked together toward a focused goal
• enforced high standard
• continued to strive for improvements.
  This is extreme ownership team culture with total human optimization.
  Combat pressure is even higher than BUD/S training pressure.
  The pressure is beyond your imagination and comfort zone.

SEALs had exceptional spirits.
Mike Monsoor jumped on a grenade to save 3 other teammates.
Ryan Job was shot in the face. He still managed to survive as a completely blind man. He married the girl of his dreams, earned a college degree with a 4.0 GPA, reached the 14,410ft peak of Mt. Rainier, and shot a trophy bull elk (with sight assistance). He was never bitter and continued to live life to the fullest until he died in surgery.

It's the duty of the leader to help and support the families and closest friends of men who have died under the leader's command.

Hell Week training was tough, but there were no risks of death or sparking international incidents.

Principle

"There are no bad units, only bad officers." - About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior by Colonel David Hackworth.

Epitomize Extreme Ownership as the leader, then your team will follow with higher performance and morale.
It's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate.
Do not tolerate substandard performance. There needs to be consequences for bad performance, or that poor performance becomes the new standard.
Leaders much enforce high standards.
No immediate severe punishments required, but tasks need to be repeated until standard is achieved.
Push standards in a way that encourages extreme ownership.

Whenever I am in the middle of a difficult workout or work task, remind myself of SEALs BUD/S training. Whatever I may be doing is nowhere near as stressful or difficult as that. However, this isn't simply a call to be tough and stay on the grind. In fact, don't think about toughness at all. Rather, this is a mindfulness and visualization exercise. Remind myself to live by good leadership principles even during the most stressful times.

People want to be part of the winning team, but they don't know how, or need motivation and encouragement.
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi
Be the change you wish to see in your team. Be that forcing function that gets different members working together to accomplish the mission.

When extreme ownership culture is integrated into the team at every level, the entire team performs well, and performance continues to improve, even when the strong leader is temporarily removed.
Junior leaders must be ready to step up and temporarily take on roles and responsibilities to carry on the mission should the boss go down.
Build growth mindset into the team:

• face facts realistically
• brutally honest assessment of self
• brutally honest assessment of team performance
• identify weakness
• strengthen
• come up with plan to overcome challenges

Corporate example

CEO of a financial services company has some key leaders who lack Extreme Ownership.
Leif chatted with CEO, visited office, and met with leadership team.
Then he conducted a leadership program for department heads and key leaders.
The CTO had a defensive demeanor and did not like Extreme Ownership.
He built the company's signature products, so taking ownership of the disastrous rollout was humbling and difficult.
CTO was full of excuses for the failures: blaming market, industry in flux, inexperienced personnel within his team, poor communication with sales team, customer service, senior executives, etc.

Leif told the BUD/S boat crew leader story.
No bad teams, only bad leaders.
When the team was failing, the leader didn't think that it was possible for them to perform better or win. This negative attitude infected the whole team.
He thought that the other teams were outperforming his team because they were lucky enough to be assigned better crews. This victim mentality of the leader made his team lose.
This attitude prevented his team from introspecting to seek self improvement.
The team members focused on their own exhaustion, pain, and misery, rather than the mission.
The became comfortable with substandard performance.
Working under poor leadership and an unending cycle of blame leads to failure.
Take ownership, assume responsibility, and adopt a winning attitude.

When the good leader took over the losing team, he exhibited extreme ownership.

• faced facts
• realized need for improvements
• did not blame anyone
• made no excuses to justify poor performance
• didn't wait for others to solve his team's problems
• believed that winning was possible even when it seemed impossible

The leader focused the team on the mission without any tolerance for bickering or infighting and adopted higher standards.
Extreme ownership is contagious.

If you aren't winning, then you aren't making the right decisions.
Don't rationalize what your mistakes and failures.
This cycle of blaming others is extremely difficult to get out of.
This is known as the tortured genius mindset. The tortured genius accepts zero responsibility for mistakes and blames everyone else for their own failings. In their mind, the rest of the world just can't see or appreciate the genius in what they are doing. This is the opposite of the extreme ownership mindset.
I had previously been in the tortured genius mindset before, but I was saved by the concept of marginal utility. Being one gave me zero marginal utility, so I stopped indulging in that mindset and seeked better ways to live.

When it comes to performance, it's not what you preach, but what you tolerate.
When you tolerate low standards, your performance declines.

In this case, the CTO started to badmouth about extreme ownership while most of the other employees embraced it.
The CEO had to fire the CTO despite how talented he was.
A new CTO with an extreme ownership mindset was hired and the company quickly got back on track towards profitability and growth.