#516： How to Lead an Unstoppable Team
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Summary
Alden Mills is a former Navy SEAL platoon commander, the founder of Perfect Fitness, the company that makes the Perfect Push-up, and the author of the book, "Unstoppable Teams." In this episode, Alden and I discuss why caring about your team is the most important thing you can do as a leader.
Transcript
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I'm Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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Now, all of us will take on leadership roles at some point in our lives.
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What can you do to ensure your team performs at its highest level?
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Well, my guest today argues that it's all about caring about the people you lead.
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He's a former Navy SEAL platoon commander, the founder of Perfect Fitness, the company
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that makes the perfect push-up, and the author of the book, Unstoppable Teams.
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Today on the show, Alden and I discuss why caring about your team is the most important
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He walks us through what he calls his care loop, which involves connecting with your team members
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on an emotional level, giving them autonomy to make decisions, and helping them progress
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Along the way, Alden shares stories from his experience as a SEAL leader and business owner
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After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash unstoppable teams.
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All right, Alden Mills, welcome back to the show.
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So we had you on, I think about four or five years ago, to talk about your book, Be Unstoppable.
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It's called Unstoppable Teams, The Four Essential Actions of High-Performance Leadership.
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So your two books have the word unstoppable in it.
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So I imagine this book is a continuation of the first book.
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Yeah, the actual Be Unstoppable ends with an introduction to the CARE acronym.
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It's all about teaming up in the end of the last book.
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And this one goes deep into building unstoppable teams.
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And for those who aren't familiar with your background, you have a lot of experience working
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Can you talk a bit about your background and what got you to write about teamwork and things
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My first team experiences started in the sport of rowing, in particular, eight-ord rowing.
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I like to think of that as one of the ultimate team sports where all eight of those blades have
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I did eight years of that where I became the captain of the Navy Naval Academy heavyweight
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And I went on a tryout for the Olympic team and sculling.
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And then hung my oar up and joined SEAL team and became a Navy SEAL and led three SEAL
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And then I started building companies after business school.
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Now, I've just totally shortened about 25 years there, but have been building companies
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And I've also done that within the community of building community action groups, leading
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So I've had experiences in sport, in the military, in the civilian world, and also in the nonprofit
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And I think people have seen some of the companies you've helped build.
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Perfect Push-Up is probably the most prominent one.
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But the irony of Perfect Push-Up, which was part of Perfect Fitness, is there were about
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a hundred different products that we created over about a 13, 14-year period of time.
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Of course, the company's still going today, but we sold the company, and I ended up leaving
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All right, so let's talk about digging into the book.
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What I thought was interesting, before you started even talking about leading teams or being
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a leader of other people, you started out talking about how you got to focus on leading
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yourself first, and you give all these great examples from when you were trained to be
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How did you learn about the importance of working on yourself, taking care of yourself first,
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leading yourself first before you can lead others while you were being a SEAL?
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At the end of the day, building a team is about building relationships and creating all kinds
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of different relationships with different personalities.
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And when you start to create those relationships, the very first thing that you're going to
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struggle with is your own self, and in particular, how authentic you're going to be.
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Because if you look at the building of a relationship, it's completely dependent right out of the gate
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And if you're not being authentic with yourself, people can read into that.
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And they'll start to wonder, well, who am I really speaking with?
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Am I speaking with the veneer of Alden, or is this really coming from his heart, and I
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And understanding what I call the conversation inside of you is the first real step in your
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And what do you think is the biggest obstacle people have with that conversation that's going
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What prevents them from being authentic like you're talking about?
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You know, I think we, especially men, we grow up with this idea that we've all got to have
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this super tough shell on the outside of us, and it's all about being Mr. Macho.
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When in fact, and I had this wonderful commanding officer of my first SEAL team, and he would
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often tell me, Alden, only ever be as tough as the situation dictates.
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And I love that thought process because that's a lot about leading and leading yourself in
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We can be extraordinarily tough on ourselves and think we're some kind of tough guy when
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actually people don't need to be that tough most of the time, right?
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They need to let the situation dictate themselves.
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And so for many of us, we grow up thinking we're somebody that we really aren't, or we're
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trying to be somebody that's not really the fabric of who we were built to be.
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And it takes a while for people to kind of peel back the layers of their onion and go,
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you know what, actually, yeah, I like music, or I like to dance, or I like to do whatever
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And it also takes a while to understand who you truly are as far as your unique superpower.
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And I spend an entire chapter talking about understanding what's your gift.
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What's the gift that you can do that you can bring to the table?
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Because when you think about building a team, it's about unlocking everybody's superpower,
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everybody's unique skill set to harness all of their capabilities and bring it all online
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It's almost as if you've got eight rowers in a boat, and every blade represents a different
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gift that is hitting that water, and we're all going in the same direction.
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So, I mean, how do you go about figuring out what your strengths are as a leader?
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Because that can be hard sometimes to get an objective view of yourself, because you're
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inside your head, and you might think something's a strength, but it might not be, or you think
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I do this drill in the book, and I base the drill off of land navigation that we would do
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in SEAL training, and it's not unique to SEALs, but that's where I learned it, and it's called
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And in triangulation, you need three points to get yourself into some semblance of a position
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when you're out in land navigation, and you'd pick three stationary objects that are usually
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on a map, and then you shoot these lines, and then you end up creating this little triangle
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And the reason I offer that up is that it's pretty similar to what you want to do for a
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simple way to find your strengths instead of going through an exhaustive testing process.
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And the three immovable objects that I recommend people doing are finding three people from three
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First, an example, one could be in a family member that is close to you.
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One could be a professional member that perhaps doesn't work on your team or maybe works as
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And then the third one is a friend, somebody who sees you in a more social setting but has
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a good feeling, has a good understanding of you, and ask them the question, if I were going
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to save your life with the only one strength that I have, what would it be?
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And would somebody say, oh, you're such a motivator.
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You'd inspire me to get out, and that's how you'd save my life.
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We need each other to figure out ways to go and do something greater than any single
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And you should feel very comfortable knowing, hey, newsflash, we're not perfect.
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And what is that one thing that I can really bring to the table?
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So that triangulation process is a simple way to get yourself started to figuring out what
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I imagine you do the same thing for your weaknesses, too.
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I can see I've had that experience where I thought something was a strength, but it's
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Like, no, I got to do this thing because that's what I'm supposed to do as a leader.
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But it would have been better if I would have just recognized, no, that's not my strength.
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And the greatest teammates are the ones that can hold up the proverbial mirror to you and
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say, this is actually what you're good at and what you're not good at.
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And if you can be humble enough, which is a key component to being a leader, then you'll
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be able to adapt and recognize where your true strength is and bring it to the forefront
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So besides figuring out what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are, one of the
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other aspects of leading yourself is taking control over the things that you can control,
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specifically your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions.
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And you created this little formula to help yourself and other people to get a better grasp
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And I will tell you, there is a story that I associate it with, and it's with our first
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He had his deep Southern accent and he had, his left butt cheek was blown off by a rocket
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And he brought us all together before we were to take this final test.
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And he told us, and this final test would allow us to class up and start SEAL training.
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And I won't go through the whole story, but he was like, do you know what my job is?
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My job is to create a conversation, a conversation between here, he's pointing at his head, and
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here, he's pointing at his heart, a conversation that's going to lead you to determine how much
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And what he's talking about is how much are we willing to sacrifice to make it through
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He goes on and he talks about the fact that 80% of us only are thinking about being a SEAL
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And sure enough, that little conversation that he gives us that went for about 10, 15 minutes
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results in half the class not passing the test.
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So we can start with 122 guys that are on average took two years to get there.
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And 64 of them, seven weeks later, after a pre-phase training, fail a test that they could
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have, that they had, they'd already passed three or four times before.
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And the whole thing about SEAL training is getting yourself to focus on what's most important,
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And I call that conversation, the conversation between the whiner and the whisperer.
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And the whiner is the thing in your head that's going back and forth, telling you what you
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can't do because it's so much pain or getting you out of the comfort zone.
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And the whiner is that feeling that's deep down in your heart saying, get up, try again.
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Do it again, where the whiner is just looking for reasons for you to stay in the comfort
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But the whisperer is like, no, you got to push.
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You got to go beyond what you think you can because you're so much more capable than you
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And the large majority of all SEAL training is getting you to focus and starting to appreciate
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And so the focus, feel, act is really that, focusing your mind, feeling your emotion of
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why you're doing that in the first place, and then taking an action.
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You see, at the end of the day, focus funnels your energy into taking an action.
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And that's what the focus, feel, act formula is really all about.
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And you gave this other great story from your time at Buds, where you almost got medically
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cut because you had some issues with your lungs.
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I mean, this is an example of you using that sort of formula to help you overcome that.
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So I'm not particularly proud of this, but I was diagnosed as an asthmatic at the ripe old
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And by the time I showed up at Buds, it was 10 years later.
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I was 22, and I had been taking asthma medication for 10 years.
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I had been kind of squirreling it away in the Naval Academy.
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And by the time I had gotten to Buds, I was pretty good at hiding, taking this pill.
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And the pill was this Theodore medication that I had created this crutch in my head to realize
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That will keep my lungs clear while I go through this.
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What ends up happening in second phase, out on a three-mile swim, my lungs are filling
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And they look at me, and they're like, you are taking some kind of medication.
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I've just been taking it because I thought it would help me get through the training and
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We all look for a crutch of some sort when you're going through that.
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You can go home with your head rung high that you got medically dropped.
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And they were giving me all these reasons, these outs.
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And there was this moment of like, wow, that's true.
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That's a way to get around that because I was really, I'd built up this, I'd built up
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this wild outcome of having to go back to my hometown and tell these people that I quit
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And what I ended up doing was telling them, you know what?
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We're going to put you through the methylcholine challenge.
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We're going to ship you over to the San Diego Balboa Hospital, put you in a box, and we're
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And I ended up passing the test, but I also made the decision that I had to stop taking
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And I really ended up saying to myself, okay, if I can't make it through SEAL training without
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this medication, then maybe this just wasn't meant to be.
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But what I'm not going to do is focus on the fact that, oh, gee, I think my lungs are feeling
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weaker today because I don't have the medication.
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I flip the focus to focus just on taking the next steps, on taking the bigger breath, on
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not focusing on the fact that, oh, I don't have that medication anymore.
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And the other thing I built up was the whole element of what I call an outcome account.
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And an outcome account helps you put into perspective your emotions.
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And that's understanding three important things.
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And there's a positive on one side and there's a negative on the other side.
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And when you look at both sides of that equation, the positive, let's say, of making it through
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SEAL training versus the negative of making it through SEAL training, which one motivates
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you more, which one makes you feel more motivated to make it through.
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I was more motivated in that particular case by the negative.
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And I drew up all kinds of what I call outcome movies of what it would be like 40 years from
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now, bouncing my grandkid on my knee and telling them, don't do what grandpa did.
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We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.
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So by getting control, by leading yourself first, you're not in a position to lead others,
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If you tell someone in your team, hey, this isn't a big deal.
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If you're doing that, they're not going to pay attention to you and just ignore you.
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Let's go into talking about this care loop you've created.
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So I want to bring out the premise of the care loop first, Brett.
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And a really beautiful way to summarize the whole care loop, I'm going to give two quotations.
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One is from President Teddy Roosevelt, who said, nobody cares how much you know until
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That is a fantastic mantra, anybody taking over any kind of group of individuals, which most
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And the second one, because it gets pretty touchy-feely here, is understanding that you
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have to reach people emotionally, not just mentally.
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And that's where that focus, feel, act formula is a key piece of this.
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Like, you've got to have both your mental and emotional focus going on.
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And the second quotation is from Abraham Lincoln, who would say, if you want to win a man to
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your cause, you must first reach his heart, the great high road to his reason.
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So here it is, you get two wonderful leaders a hundred years ago, and they're both saying
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And they're saying, you got to connect by showing how much you care.
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And so the care loop, and I specifically call out a loop because these four actions that we
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talk about, connect, achieve, respect, empower, it's a never-ending cycle of showing
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Because the more you can show people that you care for them, and we're going to get into
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this, but it's not about just being touchy-feely, warm and cuddly, and it's all unicorns and pink
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It's about getting people to care so they will dare.
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And the dare is pushing them beyond their horizon of what they thought their capabilities are.
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So in the case of connect, which is the first portion of the loop, that's the first thing
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that happens when you start interacting with others and think about, okay, we're going to
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take this blob of humans called a group of individuals, and let's see if we can't form
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this into a team to go get something accomplished.
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Well, what's the point of connecting with somebody?
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I think it's just to collaborate, do something with them together.
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But the real goal of connecting with others in every process that we do, even if it were
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just a handshake looking somebody in the eye for the first time, is to build a level of
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Now, you're not going to build a lot of trust in 10 seconds, but over 10 days or over 10
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And the way your tools at your disposal to build that trust, which becomes the foundation
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I think I'm going to give a little bit more to this group.
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I believe in what that person is saying because they're being authentic and they're being
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You have your ability for communication, your commitment, and your credibility.
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And those three C's there are the ones that give the integrity, your accountability, your
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consistency, and showing how much you care about them.
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And once you start to learn to build that trust rapidly and successfully, you can then
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Well, let's dig into one of these three C's of the connection, particularly communication.
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In your experience leading groups of people, what's the hardest thing about communication
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People blow off the importance of body language and tone.
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If you were to look at communication, it's broken down into three components at its bare bones
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You know, there have been studies out there and they would say communication is broken
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into body language, which represents roughly 55% of communication.
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When somebody comes up and looks at you, are you leaning in?
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You're not even looking at them and your head's down saying, yeah, what can I help you with?
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That immediately sets the tone for somebody coming into your office.
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If you don't even greet them and get out from behind the obstacle that's between them called
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Tone, they say, represents 38% of somebody's communication.
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And tone can show the inflection from, do I really care?
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I mean, you could imagine just somebody giving two different speeches, but one using vocal
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I mean, which speaker would you be more interested in listening to?
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And that's exactly the same thing with people on a team.
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And then the third piece are obviously the words, right?
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But communication is only going to get you so far.
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The next two pieces of it are your commitment and your credibility.
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Are you asking people to do something that they know you'd be doing as well?
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Are you rolling up your sleeves and getting in there first?
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Because remember, as a leader, you're going to have to take that first step over the care
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bridge before somebody else starts saying, yeah, you know what?
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And on that note, we are all built to reciprocate with care.
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If you were to walk through a door of a store and somebody is right behind you, you hold that
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door for that somebody, 99 out of 100 times that somebody will then look behind over their
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shoulder and see if they should hold the door for somebody else.
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But if you didn't hold that door, they'd probably just walk through and not think anything of
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But on average, that's the kind of, and it's a super simple example, but we reciprocate with
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Unless, of course, we're psychopaths and our amygdala and our brain isn't firing.
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But for everybody else, we reciprocate with care.
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And the reciprocity of care goes through these actions of connect, achieve, respect, and empower.
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Well, let's talk about that second part, achieve.
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And so why is it achieve a part of this care aspect?
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And then walk us through those five A's or some of them and how that looks when you're
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So remember, and I dedicate another chapter at the end of the book to talk about the phases
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of going from a group of uninformed individuals up to an unstoppable team.
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The whole idea of building a team is to accomplish something.
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That's the whole thing of why we're building a team in the first place.
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Whatever it is, something where you need a lot of horsepower, a lot of manpower, a lot of
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female power to get this across the finish line, to do something above and beyond what
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And of course, it doesn't happen so sequentially.
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A lot of times, like, hey, I'm Alden Mills and I'm building this team and I'm trying to
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When I've introduced myself, we're starting to get to know each other, but I've also told
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them very consistently, I want to bring this next generation healthcare company.
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And the next generation healthcare company was basically the calling card for building out
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We didn't even think of ourselves as a fitness company.
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We thought of ourselves as a place where people could help take control of their bodies
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And we thought of that as a next generation healthcare company.
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And I maintained consistency for 15 years talking about that's where we're achieving.
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There are five different, you know, and I want to be careful to not let people think of
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like, okay, first I do this step and then I do this step.
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A lot of these things build upon each other and they happen sometimes naturally.
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And sometimes you've got to remind yourself, oh, I got to set this direction.
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But as you go through this, one of the key elements of the five A's, and if you haven't
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figured it out, you know, I like using the English language as memory aids.
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I like the military acronyms because they're super simple to remember because I want people
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to remember these things, I don't want to make it complicated for them, is understanding
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that you have to assume that people can do the job.
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If they've gotten through your hiring process, take a step back for a minute and let them attempt
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Now you're going to have another A in there called assessing and assessing is this ability
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to check in, you know, weekly, monthly on what's going great, what's not going great.
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And, you know, the first day that I kind of skipped over, but I was building on was you're
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aspiring, you're, you're constantly inspiring people to say, this is where we're going.
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And then you assume, and then you assess, and then you have to appreciate what's going
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on, not just inside the team, but outside the team.
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And I don't just mean appreciate them like, hey, you did a great job today.
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Appreciate the efforts in their struggles internally and externally on how that's going.
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What's the difference between like internally and externally?
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Like what would be an example of internal appreciation as opposed to external appreciation?
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One of the key things that people kind of forget about is that let's say you're coming into
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work, people have lives outside of work and actually a large majority of their life is
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And so if you're not taking the time to understand what are these people, what's going on at work
00:32:12.760
Are they dealing with something that is keeping them up at night?
00:32:17.160
Or maybe they're really distracted at three o'clock in the afternoon when you're trying
00:32:21.640
to have a meeting and they're on a phone and you're like, hey, what's going on here?
00:32:25.860
And that single parent looks at you and said, oh, I'm sorry.
00:32:28.520
I just, I need to know if my kids are getting picked up or not.
00:32:41.280
If you were to do something just as simple as that, do you know how much of a change
00:32:46.140
that is for somebody who's like, oh my God, that person really cared about me and what's
00:32:52.340
They're going to spend more time trying to help you out.
00:32:59.080
And the other piece of this, and this is, I did this with every SEAL platoon.
00:33:03.020
I did it with everybody that was a direct report in any of the businesses that I've built or
00:33:09.840
worked with is understanding their one, three, and five-year goals.
00:33:18.660
I would ask them even in the interview process, hey, so where do you want to be in five years?
00:33:24.120
I wouldn't go through all one, three, and five in a five-year process, but I want to be
00:33:34.460
You know, you'll see many times in the book, I will talk about to lead is to serve and to
00:33:42.960
And another key piece of the achievement process is there are going to be times where people
00:33:51.400
And that other A is assuring them that we're making this progress, showing them we made this
00:33:58.140
progress, picking them back up to have them keep going.
00:34:01.660
Because we're all human, we will all make mistakes, and building out a team where everybody
00:34:07.120
has your back is the quintessential component to creating a high-performance team.
00:34:14.600
But yeah, I've noticed the appreciate part is something whenever I've been in groups and
00:34:19.120
there's been a leader that goes out of their way to show their appreciation in the ways that
00:34:24.020
you talked about as well, sort of the subtle ways that you overlook.
00:34:26.920
Like, yeah, it does motivate you more to work for them.
00:34:31.460
And I think that you talk about this in the book too.
00:34:33.640
There's studies showing that most people at work today, they feel disengaged with their
00:34:39.680
And they'd rather, and they've done studies where they'd say people say they would rather
00:34:42.660
have just someone say that you're doing a great job as opposed to more money.
00:34:46.660
People want to feel like what they're doing matters.
00:34:49.220
Without question and understanding, you know, I use an example that's probably been used quite
00:34:56.800
a bit over the years, but President Kennedy walking through the halls of NASA, inspecting
00:35:04.080
And he goes up to this young man who's a janitor, he's mopping the floor, and he looks at the
00:35:09.640
janitor and he goes, hey, tell me, what are you doing?
00:35:13.720
And the janitor looks up and he goes, oh, hello, Mr. President, I'm helping put a man
00:35:21.060
Leaders will connect a purpose all the way up and down the chain where everybody feels
00:35:35.840
Like you're not trying to get people intellectually, you're trying to get to them emotionally.
00:35:41.600
Okay, well, let's move on to that next part of the care loop, which is respect.
00:35:49.760
Most groups get to the high functioning group with just connect and achieve.
00:35:57.860
The third piece starts to transition you from a group to a team, and that's respect.
00:36:04.600
And it's not respect in the kind of gangster form of, oh, man, you got to respect me.
00:36:12.880
Or the CEO that walks in and goes, well, I'm the CEO now, so you must, you know, you do what
00:36:22.720
And the goal of respect is actual mutual respect.
00:36:29.780
The whole idea of creating a mutually respectful environment is everyone has the courage and
00:36:39.000
interest to raise their hand and say, I have a better idea.
00:36:42.820
That's the real goal of respect, is to get contributors contributing.
00:36:49.340
But they're not going to do it if they don't feel that their point of view, their idea will
00:36:56.200
even be heard, let alone respected enough to say, well, let's check that out.
00:37:03.560
And a lot of leaders forget that you can get respect one of two ways, but there's only
00:37:14.680
The first way is through authority, a position of authority.
00:37:28.440
No, maybe for 10 seconds, 10 minutes, maybe for some underling.
00:37:33.420
Who doesn't know you from Adam, but sees the word C in front of your name as the title.
00:37:40.500
But the moment you start opening your mouth, moving your body, making these decisions, they're
00:37:47.420
going to make a decision if they really respect you on your actions.
00:37:50.860
Authority or actions, you want actions for respect.
00:37:57.640
Well, I was going to say, you talk about sort of this daikon between authority and actions
00:38:04.580
I know in my experience, firsthand, when I'm leading a team of volunteers for like a non-profit
00:38:09.720
or it's a church or like a civic group, like the way you lead is a lot different because
00:38:19.140
They can, you know, they're, they're taking away time from their family, from their personal
00:38:24.320
So I got to be very respectful and like show that I'm in on this together, that I don't
00:38:28.860
think I'm better than them, that I'm going to do the world on my sleeves and do the work.
00:38:32.300
But you, you also, you make the point that when at a job, like people don't have to be
00:38:40.060
So why not lead the same way as you would lead a group of adults or kids at a Boy Scout troop,
00:38:45.880
the same way you'd lead at your, your workplace?
00:38:51.020
And that's what we talk about in the book is leading as if they were all volunteers.
00:38:55.780
And it's certainly in this high employment rate that we have, everybody's a volunteer,
00:39:21.580
Now they may have some obligations to continue to serve, but they don't have to continue to
00:39:27.880
Of course, you want them to make that decision before you're out in the battlefield.
00:39:31.640
But the same thing goes when you're talking about working in a community action group or
00:39:36.360
with your church or your school, they're, they're all volunteers too.
00:39:40.300
They're doing it because they're emotionally driven to be a part of something.
00:39:49.960
And if somebody is just skipping around from one place to the next, it's because they're
00:39:57.760
And they think, well, it's just my bank account.
00:40:00.560
But the moment you create a team and make them feel part of a tribe, make them feel like
00:40:05.800
they're part of a family, it doesn't really matter how much you pay them or what kind
00:40:13.200
The greatest benefits they have are being emotionally part of a family, a team, a tribe.
00:40:20.880
Another part of this respect part of the care loop that you talk about is when people on
00:40:26.100
your team mess up, that can be an uncomfortable situation for both the leader and the lead
00:40:30.540
because like no one, it's just an uncomfortable thing.
00:40:32.620
But you said that should actually, it shouldn't be that way.
00:40:35.000
And as a leader, you have the responsibility to show respect and create that culture of respect
00:40:40.940
so that when someone messes up, instead of it being a moment of just like making them
00:40:44.980
feel terrible, you use it as a moment where everyone learns together.
00:40:50.500
And then you walk through like these three questions that you can sort of use on the fly
00:40:58.300
So let me just say, I use a couple of really great examples.
00:41:04.160
I mean, I was fired up about Boston Children's Hospital that I spent some time with and they
00:41:14.320
By the way, this is a hospital that has won top hospital, pediatric hospital for like 30
00:41:22.620
Eight out of 10 of their divisions have ranked in the top two out of the top 10.
00:41:30.480
And what they do is they create such an area of respect that anybody and everybody is encouraged
00:41:38.740
to raise their hand and say, I've made a mistake.
00:41:43.220
And that's the whole key of respect is getting people to willingly raise their hand and say,
00:42:02.720
And the more you can get people to self-appoint themselves, you know, to self-describe like,
00:42:08.780
hey, I made this mistake or self-report, I've made this mistake.
00:42:25.620
You know, in SEAL Team, we would say, if you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.
00:42:32.080
And we also use this other term all the time, this saying, the more you sweat in peace,
00:42:41.920
Same thing with building a world, beating new idea and bringing it to reality.
00:42:47.240
You got to work your ass off and you're going to make a whole bunch of mistakes, right?
00:42:55.200
Let's fail fast, but let's fail fast and know why we failed and let's try it a different way.
00:43:04.460
If they're feeling ashamed of making the mistake, then you don't have enough respect built into
00:43:09.940
And the first person that should be raising their hand to saying, oh, look at this dumb
00:43:19.380
And what I love about these three questions, so we've been talking about how as a leader,
00:43:26.300
But these three questions, they're interesting because they actually diffuse those negative
00:43:33.700
We can start making you think irrationally and cause you to make more mistakes.
00:43:37.460
And by just asking these three questions, like what happened?
00:43:43.220
It sort of just takes out the emotion completely.
00:43:47.540
And the interesting thing is by intellectualizing the mistake process, you actually can connect
00:43:51.900
more with the people you lead on an emotional level.
00:43:55.940
And let's not forget, that's great that you had that conversation with that one person,
00:44:01.160
but people should feel really comfortable to spread that word.
00:44:06.160
This is what happened, and here's what I'm going to do about it.
00:44:09.900
And let people know, because the whole idea is to try and reduce the number of mistakes
00:44:22.280
Keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
00:44:26.020
Well, let's talk about that last part of the care loop, the E, which is empower.
00:44:32.720
So at the end of the day, that completes the loop.
00:44:36.200
When you get to empowering, that means we're building and getting people to think like
00:44:42.560
The whole goal of empowering somebody is getting them to saying, I own this.
00:44:53.320
And of course, empowering also means you're giving them the authority and the responsibility
00:44:58.900
You don't want to give them the responsibility and not the authority.
00:45:07.000
You've just gotten your promotion to that level that you've been working at for five years
00:45:14.700
And then you're going to spend the rest of your time at that new senior level of power, giving
00:45:37.080
And what I mean by that is raise everybody else up.
00:45:40.580
Because when you start to do that and really empower people through what I call a surprise,
00:45:46.820
three E's, through educating, enabling, and engaging with them and helping them succeed,
00:45:54.500
then they're going to give you the best power back.
00:46:00.720
They're going to be so grateful that you helped them succeed, that they are only going to help
00:46:15.220
You'll keep empowering by enclosing the experience gap, by saying, hey, here's what I've learned.
00:46:20.140
I want you to stand on my shoulders and go beyond what I was able to do.
00:46:24.140
And what will happen during this team process is that people will spin out of the team, right?
00:46:32.200
It's not the same team most of the time as it was the year before.
00:46:39.020
But a lot of people will spin out into different teams within your organization.
00:46:42.980
But they'll take that care loop and it will start all over again.
00:46:51.460
Right now, they're going to go out and they're going to start connecting with new people.
00:46:55.280
They'll start achieving, building respect, empowering them.
00:47:01.220
And I want to reiterate the point that you've made throughout the book.
00:47:03.520
This isn't just like a linear step-by-step thing that you're going.
00:47:09.260
This is going on all at the same time in a perpetual cycle.
00:47:16.960
And important to note, this isn't a clean process.
00:47:28.460
Relationships where there is such a high level of trust that they will be willing to dare greatly.
00:47:41.720
But what I'm doing is offering up this framework, these guidelines, these actions to say, hey, here are the fundamentals.
00:47:50.120
You'll adapt them to make them your way, to do it your authentic way.
00:47:54.900
But don't ever forget, it will still always be based.
00:47:58.920
The team is nothing more than a reflection of its leader.
00:48:01.980
So be true to yourself because faking it can get really exhausting over time.
00:48:10.240
Well, Alden, where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?
00:48:13.300
They can find me on my website at alden, A-L-D-E-N hyphen mills, M-I-L-L-S dot com.
00:48:24.560
And they can find unstoppable teams at pretty much all your local bookstores and amazon.com.
00:48:42.940
It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.
00:48:45.320
You can find out more information about his work at his website, alden dash mills dot com.
00:48:49.520
Also check out our show notes at A-L-D-E-N hyphen dot com slash unstoppable teams.
00:49:01.020
Well, that wraps up another edition of the A-L-D-E-N podcast.
00:49:06.300
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00:49:09.820
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00:49:13.480
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Until next time, this is Brett McKay, reminding you not only to listen to the A-L-D-E-N podcast,