Leadership Is Overrated
Episode Stats
Summary
When an organization wants to get more productive and better reach its goals, it typically looks to retool its leadership, trying to find lone figures who can apply more effective top-down control. But my guest says there's a much more effective strategy for getting things done, creating and empowering teams of self-starters. Kyle Bucket is a retired Navy SEAL, an executive consultant, and the co-author of Leadership is Overrated: How the Navy SEALs and Successful Businesses Create Self-Leading Teams That Win.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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When an organization wants to get more productive and better reach its goals,
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it typically looks to retool its leadership, trying to find lone figures who can apply more
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effective top-down control. But my guest says there's a much more effective strategy for
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getting things done, creating and empowering teams of self-starters. Kyle Bucket is a
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retired Navy SEAL, an executive consultant, and the co-author of Leadership is Overrated,
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How the Navy SEALs and Successful Businesses Create Self-Leading Teams That Win.
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Today on the show, Kyle first unpacks the problems with the conventional model of leadership.
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He then explains what the self-led team-oriented model looks like and some of the ways to create
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effective self-led teams, including killing the leader and establishing a ritual-laden culture.
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We also talk about the role a leader can still play in an organization.
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Along the way, Kyle shares stories both from history and his experience as a SEAL that illustrate
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why self-led teams are so effective at getting things done. After the show's over, check out
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So you and your co-author have recently published a book with a provocative title. When I saw the
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title, I was like, I got to talk to this guy. Leadership is Overrated. Before we talk about the
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book, let's talk about your background because I think it will help our listeners understand
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Sure. Well, back in high school, I really wanted to serve our country in a unique way,
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in an elite way. And I grew up right across the river from West Point. So what I had access to
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in high school was going to army games, football games, basketball games, hockey games. And I didn't
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have any Navy in my background other than my grandfathers who had served, but they wouldn't
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talk about it that much. So the only thing I really had access to was the army, and this is the 90s.
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And Chuck Norris movies were awesome. I fell in love with Chuck Norris, and I wanted to be Chuck
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Norris. And so one day, I'm like, in my senior year of high school, I'm 17, and my dad comes home,
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and he has this book. And he's like, hey, man, there's this group called Navy SEALs. You love
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being in the water. You love being around lakes, rivers, oceans, pools. You just love the water.
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You're a waterman through and through. You were actually swimming before you were walking,
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and you love the water. And you should check these guys out. I know you want to join the army,
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but you should really check this out. Dude, I stayed up till five o'clock in the morning that night
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reading the entire book. I think it was Dick Marchinko's Red Team book. And I was like,
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I want to do that. That's what I'm going to do. So I'm 17 at the time. My parents would not sign on
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the dotted line for me to join because as a minor, you need parental consent. And so literally,
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Brett, the morning of my 18th birthday, I'm sitting on the steps of the neighbor recruiter's office
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to sign the dotted line. I'm like, I need to be a Navy SEAL. That's what I want to do.
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So I signed the dotted line. And 20 years later, I retired from a wonderful career.
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And I got to do a lot of fun stuff during those 20 years. Got to do everything from doing some
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single man loan operations on three separate continents, all the way up to running what I like
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to joke and kid about, which is the world's most elite university, where we train Navy SEALs to be
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snipers, to be communicators, to be freefall tacticians, to be freefall jump masters,
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intelligence courses, and on and on and on. It's an awesome school. And I'm very proud of that. And
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then my largest operation was leading tactically an 800-man marine element through southern Afghanistan
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and Kali Ghaz Valley. And then a lot of things in between, you know, being part of the team that
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initially implemented in the early 2000s, Palantir into SOCOM, bringing new weaponry to the force,
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getting to consult on other technologies, both classified and unclassified. So a lot of things
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in between. And what a lot of people don't know, it's really interesting, you know, the Navy SEALs you
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see on TV, you see on the movies as running and gunning and blowing stuff up, which we obviously do
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do that. But we also run the enterprise, which is really interesting. You know, we don't really talk
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about it that much. But I find it pretty fascinating, especially now that I'm, you know, retired, and I
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moved on, and I've been in corporate America for almost five years now. And it's pretty interesting to
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me that we don't really talk about that, because it translates pretty well. And what I mean by that, let me
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just real quickly is, you know, we did a big military construction project where we moved the SEAL teams
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from one area to seven miles away in San Diego, California. Like that's a $1.6 billion military
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construction project. Like there's no green men running around doing this, right? It's us. Like
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we're overseeing the design. We're working with the GCs. We're working the sub vendors. You know,
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we're working through the entire process to make sure everything goes smooth. We're dealing with
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environmental impacts to the land. And so on and on and on. Like it's not sexy. Like everyone wants to
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talk about, you know, the Navy SEAL stuff. And I get it. My point is, is that through that career,
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which I'm forever grateful for the Navy and all it did for me, and for others, you know, you get to see
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a whole world of execution, operations, supply chain, global logistics, you name it. So it's pretty
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exciting. So anyway, needless to say, I became a student of organizational culture, what you can do
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to build and improve and design a culture, and then what you can do to, you know, scale it and
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sustain it. But yeah, it's a little bit of my background. So what you do in this book is you
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help, along with your co-author, help readers understand the culture that's in the SEALs teams
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of what you call self-leadership. We're going to talk about what that is exactly. But let's talk
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about this title of this book, Leadership is Overrated. What's wrong with the conventional
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way we think about leadership, you think? Well, a couple of things. I'll give you kind
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of like my top five. I think a lack of adaptability. You know, there's rapid changes in tech, in the
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markets, in global dynamics, and they require, especially nowadays, quick adaptability. And in my
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opinion, I think there's no one better than the Navy SEALs in reacting quickly and being able to
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adapt. And, you know, a top-down leadership approach can really hinder agility as decisions may take
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longer to flow through the hierarchy. Whereas when you have self-led teams, especially in the SEAL team
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situation, you know, as a ground force commander, you're overseeing an entire operation, but a fire team,
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which is, you know, an element of four individuals, four to six individuals, might be dealing with a
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situation and they just have to take matters into their own hands. And so when you have that
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conventional way of thinking, it really makes it challenging to have adaptability and make rapid
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changes in the moment. And nowadays, I mean, it's 2023 as we're recording this and the markets are
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moving so fast. Global dynamics are shifting so fast. I mean, we all just lived through COVID,
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right? Like how much changed so fast? So, I mean, the lack of adaptability is a big one for me.
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And because of that, that kind of trickles into my next point, which is, you know, innovation
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suppression. You know, hierarchical structures might really stifle innovation and creative thinking.
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And, you know, when you have ideas from lower level teams or individuals, they might not reach
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the top or be acted upon properly. You know, my next point is, you know, employee engagement,
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command and control style can really lead to disengagement and reduced morale amongst your
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employees as they might really feel undervalued and disempowered. Limited ownership is another one.
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An hourly employee, for example, might not take full ownership of their work when decisions are
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solely made at the top. And this can really impact accountability and performance.
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Slow communication is another big one. You know, information can get distorted,
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it might delay or it moves through layers of management leading to misalignment and misunderstanding.
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And then, you know, at the end of the day, risk aversion, right? Leaders at the top might hesitate
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to take calculated risks, fearing, you know, negative consequences for their position or their
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reputation. And so all of these things that I just mentioned, you know, intertwine and really become
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challenging for the conventional way we think of leadership. Does that make sense?
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Yeah, that makes sense. And another thing you talk about too, that stood out to me is that when we
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focus on the top down idea of leadership, it puts too much emphasis on that leader, like he's some sort
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of hero and that he can change, he can turn a company around. And I've read studies before where
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basically it's not true. Like you could, you hire like a rockstar CEO. He did well in one company.
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He goes to another company and they think, well, this guy did great at that one company.
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He should turn this other company around. And then the rockstar CEO just, he fumbles, he doesn't do it.
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And it's because they think it's the leader, like leader plays a role, but when it comes down to it,
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and we're going to talk about the day, it's the culture and it's the people in that organization.
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That's right. That's right. Well said. Well said.
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So instead of helping leaders become better leaders, you and the people you work with at
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Culture Force help people become self-led teams. So what does it mean to be a self-led team?
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Well, it means, you know, back to the SEAL analogy, you know, our missions often involve
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decentralized decision-making where individuals closest to the situation have the autonomy
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to make quick and informed choices. So what we preach and what we practice and try to empower
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our teams and leaders to do is, hey, have you built in your organization a structure, a decision-making
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process, whatever you want to call it, you know, policies, procedures, your organizational structure,
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et cetera, et cetera. Have you built it into the culture and also your structure? You know, I understand
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there's legal ramifications for every organization, but have you built it into the organization that
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the individual closest to the situation has the autonomy to make a quick and informed choice?
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And then that goes back to, you know, where are you at with training? Where are you at with education?
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And on and on and on. But at the end of the day, like, can this leader at the lowest level
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make a decision or is that individual just going to get hammered because they made a decision and it,
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oh, well, we had to have, you know, John make the decision, you know, Jane's not allowed to make the
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decision. John has to be the person to make the decision. Right. And so what we dive into with our
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teams or our leaders is, hey, at what point does this have to go all the way to the top? Like, can they
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make a decision here? Can they make a decision here? And it's interesting because we all take that
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for granted. Sometimes we don't really deep dive into that, but at what point and where can you make
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these decisions? You know, do you have decentralized decision making? Are the groups empowered? Is it
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a group that's empowering trust and ownership and responsibility? Is it adaptable? Back to what I was
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saying earlier. And then, you know, how does the communication work? Is communication enabled
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across all team members for a rapid exchange of information and understanding and on and on and on.
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So it really goes back to, though, like at what level can you make a decision? And you give an example.
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It was the Belgian Antarctic expedition to show what a self-led team looks like. This was a ship in
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1897. It was the Belgica and the explorer Roald Amundsen was a part of this crew. What can this
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expedition teach us about being a self-led team? So in the Belgica, if you're not familiar, this was
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one of the first expeditions to the South Pole. And when they get down there, basically they get stuck
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in the ice for months on end. And the shipmates, if you will, start developing, you know, obviously
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a slew of issues, depression, anxiety, all of the things start setting in. People start getting sick,
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including the captain and commander. And so the captain and commander is bedridden for a month.
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And leading up to before he gets bedridden, basically one of the individuals and that it
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was the doctor who says, hey, we should start eating penguins. And he's like, what? We can't
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eat penguins? That's disgusting. And the doctor's like, no, they're full of protein. Our men need
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penguins. So sure enough, the commander gets sick. His orders of don't eat penguins kind of now fall
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flat. And the crew starts taking matters into their own hand and they start eating penguins.
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And the doctor says, hey, start playing board games. And they start playing board games while
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they're dealing with isolation, scurvy, and harsh weather. And their morale improves slowly over
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time. Now they're starting to get fed. They start making fires on the ice and they actually come out of
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it. Months later, they start nursing the captain back to full health and they actually come out of
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it and make the trip and the journey back home. All because of the team just started taking ownership
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of the situation and started working together, even though the captain, the leader, was down for the
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count as you would. And then later on, Roald Amundsen, he becomes very famous for reaching the South Pole.
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And it's pretty incredible to hear of how that impacted him and what he then went on to do at
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his next expedition and how he prepared for the next expedition. It's pretty cool.
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Yeah. You did a contrast between Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott. Robert Falcon Scott took the
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sort of top down. He thought he knew the best way to do things. And Amundsen, he looked at the
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teams like, what do you guys know? And so I think Falcon Scott, he was like using horses down in the
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Antarctic for trudging and getting the sleds. And Amundsen was like, that's dumb. Let's talk to
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these Inuit guys. Let's use dog sleds. That's probably more efficient. It's things like that.
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You have this chapter that something you guys do in the SEALs is an exercise where you kill the leader.
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Not literally, but it is a training exercise where you kill the leader. And you recommend the groups that
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you work with, they do the same thing with their organization. They do an exercise where you kill
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the leader. What can killing the leader reveal about a group?
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Yeah. So what I mean by that is we will be doing a training scenario and maybe the SEAL platoon or SEAL
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troop is taking down a village in a training scenario or they're in the middle of the desert and all of a
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taking on enemy fire. And maybe even early or mid operation, a training cadre will walk over to the
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troop commander or the troop chief or the platoon commander or the attack lead and just say, hey,
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simulating a training situation, hey, dude, you just took a gunshot to the chest. You have a fatal chest
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wound. You're down. You're out. And so the platoon or the troop now has to react to the leader is now
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down. He's out. Okay. And then we get to watch as the next person in the train steps up into that
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role. The individual who's now killed, for air quotes, he gets to sit there and watch and not say
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anything, just sit there and take notes. And he gets to watch to see how the next guy steps up into that role
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and how he does. And it does two things, right? Obviously, it really, really sheds light, a spotlight on
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how well he, the dead guy, has prepared his replacement. And for both of them, it's an incredible situation
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where they now get to go back after the operation or the exercise is done. And they can debrief amongst
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themselves and kind of do a 360 peer review of each other of, hey, how well did I prepare you,
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replacement, for this position to step up into this role, to step up into the position? Or how well did
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I not prepare you? Or on the flip side, like, hey, man, I really thought you were prepared. I thought you
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were ready for this. I thought we went over this numerous times. Obviously, you weren't prepared.
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Let's dive back into, you know, X, Y, and Z. How can I support you? How can I ensure that you're
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trained and ready to go if this should ever happen again, or the next time this happens in a training
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situation? And on and on and on. Or many times, there's the great success story too, right? The guy
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steps up and he crushes it. And he does a phenomenal job. And you're like, oh, great. Okay,
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now I've already replaced myself. Now we can start working on a second individual to start getting
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ready to be a replacement. And on and on and on, right? So it's really incredible from multiple
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standpoints on, you know, killing the leader, if you will. And so what we talk about is, hey,
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if you're ready to actually try this, why not just try it on a vacation? You know, go take a vacation
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for four or five days and turn your phone off and just stare at the ocean and enjoy life in Mexico or
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something and see how your organization or your team or your department does without you being
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accessible for just a couple of days. I think it's an incredible opportunity to just see what happens,
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see if you're ready to do that, and see if the next person in line is ready to rise to the occasion.
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It's going to show you if you have a self-led organization.
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And you can apply this as well in a lot of other places besides work. If you belong to a church
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group, a civic group, you could even do this in your family. Like just say, tell your kids,
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you know what, kids, I'm not doing anything. And let's see what happens. Let's see if they're able to
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keep things going. And you might be surprised. You might find out that you are, in fact,
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dispensable, which is good. That's the goal of parenting, right? You want to make yourself,
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they don't need you anymore at a certain point.
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That's right. That's right. We actually have a funny kind of joke around the house right now that
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I'm trying to practice what I preach, which is I've become the, my kids are still fairly young.
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They're five, eight, and 10. And my wife, who I love dearly, she's a rock star. She's a rock star.
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But she is technologically challenged. Very, very, and she wouldn't mind me saying that.
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And so I have become, especially nowadays where there's all these devices, right? Like I'm the
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family IT guy sometimes. And so I'm trying to remove myself from being that family IT guy.
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We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.
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And now back to the show. Okay. So instead of focusing on the leader, what you guys focus on
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is developing a culture. The groups you focus on developing their culture. So how do you define
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Yeah. So real quickly, what we really focus on is, hey, you have a culture, no matter what,
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it's there, it exists. What do you want it to be? Do you want it to be energetic? Do you want,
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are you striving for a calm environment? Are you striving for, you know, a knowledge base,
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whatever it is. It's, it's, to me, it's irrelevant. What kind of culture you're desiring to build?
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What matters though, is everything we've already talked about. Are you going to empower the self-led
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teams, right? Simultaneously, what is the culture that you want to build? And do you have buy-in
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from your team on said desired culture? Or if you're one of one, okay, it's you, right? It's you,
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it's bouncing it off your mentors, it's doing self-assessments, et cetera, et cetera.
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But if you do have a team already, it's, do you have buy-in and what is that desired culture that
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you're trying to build? Okay. Once you understand what that is, now let's define it. Let's put it
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to words. Let's put it to values. Let's put it to purpose. And then we go, okay, now let's build it.
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And we talk about, these are mainly the three sections in our book, right? Is define what you
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want, then let's build it. And then let's scale and sustain it. And by working by, through, and with
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your teams, your self-led teams, we believe we have a great recipe to actually do that.
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You know, culture really refers to the shared values, beliefs, the norms, behaviors, and practices
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of any group or organization or community. It's really that collective identity that shapes how
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people within the group interact or make decisions. Back to what we were talking about earlier, like,
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you know, decentralized decision-making processes and how they work together. And culture influences the
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way that we all perceive our roles, how we communicate the overall atmosphere within the group.
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And so we talk about, you know, the components of really defining it.
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Well, I think an important point you made is that every organization, every group has a culture,
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even if they're not proactively creating a culture. Like, you have a culture. You have a way of doing
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things that just passes through tacitly. You don't have to think about it. It's there.
00:23:40.840
100%. 100%. So well said, Brett. You know, no matter what, you've got one. So thinking,
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oh, we don't really have... Oh, you've got one. Trust me. I'll walk in and feel it in two seconds.
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A couple of years ago, I think it was 2017-ish, I got to... I got a unique two or three days up in
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Silicon Valley where I went to and spent, you know, three hours-ish, two to three hours in some of the
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following organizations. I went to Dropbox, Facebook, Instagram, Oracle, Google, Airbnb,
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and a couple of others. My point is, I got to feel in a matter of like 48 hours,
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all of the cultures. And if you ever have the opportunity to do that, regardless of the name
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of the company, my point is just go and bounce around a couple of organizations in a matter of
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two days, you'll feel what I'm talking about. You'll feel it. You'll feel it in two seconds.
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You'll feel the different types of culture at those organizations. So my point of it is to you
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and what you just said, Brett, is no matter what, it's there. It exists. If you walk to, you know,
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five or six organizations or companies in a matter of a day or two, you'll feel it. And then you can
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go back to yours and you'll feel yours too. Yeah. Because it's there. It's there.
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And so you're saying if you're going to have a culture, you might as well shape it so that it
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can get stuff done. That's right. Yeah. That's right. That's right. And you've seen the power of
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culture in your SEAL career. You can go into a SEAL team and there's a culture there that people know
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just what to do to get stuff done and they just fall in line and they do it because that's what you do.
00:25:24.700
So that's right. We have an incredible, an incredible ethos. It's called the Navy SEAL
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ethos. And, you know, it goes into in times of war or uncertainty, there's a special breed of warrior
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ready to answer our nation's call. And I won't, you know, cite the entire thing, but at the end of the
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day, forged by adversity, they stand alongside America's finest special operators to serve the
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country, the American people and protect their way of life. And everyone, all of us say the following
00:25:59.800
two sentences, which is, I am that warrior. And it is a privilege that I must earn my trident,
00:26:08.580
which is the Navy SEAL insignia. I must earn my trident every day. And so that's ingrained from the day one
00:26:17.740
that you sign up to join till, you know, even today. Cause we also say, I'm never out of the fight.
00:26:25.200
My training is never complete. And we believe that, right? We totally believe that every single Navy
00:26:31.620
SEAL, every single Navy SEAL will believe and agrees that their training is never complete till the day
00:26:39.380
that we retire. We are nonstop learning and improving and the training's never complete and
00:26:45.980
we're never out of the fight. And we're trying every single day to earn our SEAL insignia, the trident.
00:26:53.740
We're trying to earn that every day by keeping up with the ethos and our creed and our brothers and
00:27:01.080
being, you know, my, uh, my late buddy, Brad Kavner had an incredible, incredible saying that said,
00:27:09.440
Lord, let me not prove unworthy of my brothers, right? Like I never want to be unworthy of standing
00:27:18.160
along, you know, shoulder to shoulder of any of my fellow men. Like that's powerful, you know,
00:27:25.340
it's really powerful. Yeah. Well, let's talk about what we can do to develop that culture. So like,
00:27:30.760
what's the process look like? How do you figure out what a group's culture should be? So it becomes
00:27:35.420
this self-led team? Well, first, like what we were saying is like, first and foremost,
00:27:40.640
you got to define it, right? What do you want it to be? Like, what do you want your values to be?
00:27:47.780
What are your core principles and beliefs? What are going to be your norms, your unspoken rules and
00:27:55.360
expectations that govern within the group? Cause these norms really define what's considered,
00:28:01.480
you know, acceptable and appropriate in a various situations. And what are you going to allow,
00:28:07.680
right? What are the behaviors? What are the observable actions and interactions? What are
00:28:13.940
going to be, and we talk about this at length, what are going to be the traditions and rituals?
00:28:19.100
Like, what are you going to be your ceremonies, your repetitive actions, your rituals that hold
00:28:24.240
symbolic meaning within the culture? I remember years ago, I talked with Gary Ridge, who's the CEO
00:28:32.860
chairman of WD40. And they have an incredible biannual ritual where they basically, you know, come
00:28:41.860
together, sit around a fire and write stuff on a notepad. And then, you know, whatever that
00:28:49.300
commitment is as an individual, they share it with the team and then they throw it in the fire and they
00:28:56.180
do it. And people love doing that ritual and coming to that, you know, campfire, that bonfire every
00:29:03.300
year. My point is, you don't have to do, you know, WD40's ritual. You just do yours. You do what's
00:29:10.500
symbolic within your culture, within your group, whatever's going to reinforce the values and
00:29:17.340
creates a sense of identity. What sorts of rituals did you have as a SEAL? Like, what did you guys do
00:29:22.920
to keep reinforcing the values you had in your team? That's good. I mean, that's a good one.
00:29:30.400
You know, we had a bunch. On Fridays would be a lot of times if we were in America, Friday afternoon
00:29:38.840
would be a barbecue. You know, maybe you have some beer, maybe not, but we'd have a barbecue every
00:29:45.020
Friday and sit down and just be with one another before everyone goes and spreads to the winds for
00:29:51.080
the weekend. On deployments, one of my favorite rituals of all time is the AAR, the after action
00:29:58.500
review. So after a long day or long night, excuse me, the sun's just coming up because we work at night,
00:30:06.140
right? The sun's just coming up. Everyone kind of grabs, no one grabs coffee because we're all
00:30:11.360
going to go to bed. But like after a long night of operating, everyone puts all their gear away,
00:30:17.680
takes care of all the gear, puts everything away. And then we sit down in a circle and we do an AAR,
00:30:24.760
an after action review where before you walk into that room, you leave all rank, all experience,
00:30:32.800
to a degree, to a degree. But you leave rank, especially outside the door. And what I mean by
00:30:39.340
that is we walk in, we get in, we sit down and we go over the operation before everyone goes to sleep
00:30:46.820
or everyone goes to, you know, go eat some food or whatever. We just sit down, grab a, you know,
00:30:52.740
water and we just go through it. And so this is what it would sound like, right? Here's me,
00:30:59.400
say I'm the tactical lead, you know, and I go, Hey guys, so here's what I did wrong.
00:31:06.640
Here's where I jacked up. Everyone learned from my mistakes. We went to this building. We should
00:31:11.880
have went to that building. I went in this room. I should have went left. Instead, I went right,
00:31:17.360
like learn from my mistakes. This is what I did. I read the door wrong. I read the opening wrong.
00:31:22.820
I read the hallway wrong, whatever it might be, right? And everyone's sitting there and we're all just
00:31:27.900
taking notes on our notepads and no one's casting judgment. In fact, we're doing the exact opposite.
00:31:33.840
We're trying to learn from everyone else's mistakes so that we don't make the same mistakes
00:31:38.860
because there's going to come a time where that situation is going to present itself again
00:31:42.640
and you don't want to make that mistake. So you're listening intently. You're not casting judgment
00:31:48.800
and you're, you know, sharing, Hey, this is what I did. This is when I made a mistake.
00:31:53.540
Like no one's given anyone to too much. Like we'll Josh with each other, right? We'll joke
00:31:58.000
with each other, but we're not giving anyone like serious grief. Like we're really trying
00:32:02.220
to just focus on learning from each other. And, uh, we're not reprimanding in that moment.
00:32:08.240
We're just, Hey, let's focus on sharing our mistakes. And that's a really powerful moment
00:32:14.640
in time where, you know, the senior guy all the way down to the junior guy is, you know,
00:32:21.640
at the same level in that moment and just sharing what we could have done better. And then, you know,
00:32:26.920
at the end, we'll talk about what we did do great and give everyone a pat on the back as well.
00:32:31.740
Something you talk about too, is that in order to have that self-led team, you need to have
00:32:35.480
a group of people who are able to lead themselves. Can you, can you inculcate that in another person?
00:32:42.200
Or is it something you kind of find through a filtering process?
00:32:47.080
So our culture in the SEAL teams, I like to call it, it's a magnet culture, meaning it really draws
00:32:53.500
in those types of individuals who are self-led. And so what I like to focus on is, Hey, how can you
00:33:02.440
make your team, your organization, a magnetized culture? Meaning you're going to, you're going to
00:33:09.340
draw in those types of individuals who are self-led, who are going to help improve the
00:33:16.060
culture. How do you make your culture a magnet to the types of individuals that are going to be
00:33:22.900
driven by the opportunities that you're giving them? So let me explain a little further. We talk
00:33:30.680
about the different types of ways that individuals are motivated, right? And many times,
00:33:37.580
leaders these days just completely ignore that. And this is hard. It's simple, but it's hard. And I
00:33:44.120
get that. But if you never pay attention to it, you're never going to be able to address it.
00:33:49.000
So what I'm talking about is every individual is driven by something different. Some individuals are
00:33:55.540
driven by, you know, compensation. Some individuals are driven by time off with their friends and family.
00:34:02.860
Some individuals are driven by challenging work that's meaningful, you know, and challenging that
00:34:08.940
allows them to utilize their skills, their knowledge and creativity. Some are really motivated by
00:34:15.200
workplace flexibility. You know, Hey, can I be remote? Can I have a job sharing agreement or
00:34:21.800
arrangement? And that'd be very motivating for some people. Some people are really, really motivated
00:34:28.460
by recognition and appreciation that they're valued for their hard work and achievements.
00:34:35.180
The point of why I go through all these is like, everyone is motivated. One of these is number one
00:34:40.900
for you. And one of these is number one for me. And one of these is number one for Jane Doe and John
00:34:45.880
Doe and on and on and on. My point is, if your culture can feed into those big motivations,
00:34:53.560
you can turn it into a magnet that's going to draw the individuals who are now going to be
00:35:00.280
self-led because they're driven and they're motivated by the opportunity and the motivators
00:35:07.320
that you have built into your organization. Right. And like the SEALs do this. They have
00:35:13.340
this culture that everyone knows about and they know about the training buds. And so it's going to
00:35:18.740
attract a certain type of person. It's going to attract a guy who's going to wake up on his 18th
00:35:23.240
birthday and sit on the stoop of the recruiting office so he can become a SEAL.
00:35:28.640
That's right. And we're not what we're not. We're not going to attract the same type of
00:35:36.580
individuals that a hedge fund in Manhattan is going to attract. You're really, really driven
00:35:41.960
by competitive compensation. Well, I'll be the first one to tell you, the Navy SEALs, you're not
00:35:47.400
getting paid a lot. Right. Right. So we're not going to attract that type of individual that's
00:35:53.280
really self-led by, hey, I want to really have a high comp. But to your point, yeah, purpose and
00:35:59.840
meaning, challenging work, we're going to attract those guys in spades. You know, we've been talking
00:36:04.980
about how leadership is overrated. Like the top down command is overrated. But you have a section
00:36:10.380
talking about how leadership is still important. You have to have a leadership position for accountability
00:36:15.400
or legal reasons. And the SEALs, there's got to be someone who the buck stops with. So if something
00:36:21.880
goes wrong, they can go to that guy and say, hey, what went wrong? But also you need a leader
00:36:26.900
in an organization to just get the self-led team going in the first place.
00:36:32.520
So what role does a single leader play in creating a self-led team?
00:36:36.160
Being aware and a desire, being aware of where you're at, starting on the branch you're on. And
00:36:45.580
then really it comes back to desire, right? Like if you don't have a desire to make an impact or
00:36:51.820
improve things, it's just not going to happen. It just doesn't happen. It goes back to you're going
00:36:58.180
to have a culture, but is it going to be a positive one? Is it going to be an empowering one,
00:37:02.900
a trusting one, or is it just going to become a mess? Like, is it not going to be a positive
00:37:09.320
environment? No team collaboration, no education or learning, and all decisions have to keep coming
00:37:16.860
to you and you just get bogged down and bogged down and back down with decision paralysis, right?
00:37:24.020
So it's really that desire and awareness to actually do it. And to your point,
00:37:32.160
you can do this at any single level. Like you can, you can do this at your level
00:37:38.680
with the individuals that are around you. Listen, I was at a grocery store a couple weeks ago and the
00:37:47.180
individual was just incredible. You could tell he was, you know, you know how they have those
00:37:52.260
attendees at the self-checkout area. There's always like one attendee, you know what I mean?
00:37:57.520
Right. And this individual, you could tell this guy, this guy was a rock star and the self-checkout
00:38:07.360
area at a grocery store, which is, you know, eight different stations was just like, you could feel
00:38:13.560
the vibe, the energy, the positivity that this individual was having on all eight people that
00:38:20.640
were just checking out of a grocery store. It was incredible. And I went up to that guy afterwards and I
00:38:26.340
told him and I gave him a big old pat on the back. My point is, is you can have it at any level.
00:38:32.800
You don't need authority to be a leader that gets a self-led team going. I think a lot of times we
00:38:37.680
confuse authority with power. You can have power, but not, and by power, I mean like influence,
00:38:44.560
right? I'm not talking about, right. But you can have that influence, even if you're not in a
00:38:47.940
position of authority, you can get the ball rolling.
00:38:49.740
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So well said. Well, we got to end this with one of my favorite stories. You talk
00:38:55.780
about the Finnish army during World War II as a great example of what happens when a group
00:39:02.700
organization becomes self-led. So this is a fight against the Soviet Union, right? This is like the
00:39:07.560
largest military force at the time. And I think they had, if I remember correctly, like 200,000.
00:39:13.700
Yeah. The Russians had three times more soldiers than the Finnish, five times more artillery,
00:39:19.940
30 times more aircraft, a hundred times more tanks. And yet the Finns were able to hold these guys off
00:39:25.980
for a long time. These is kind of like these basically farmers who put on their skis and used,
00:39:32.620
you know, iron sighted rifles to hold these guys off. So what can we learn from the Finnish army during
00:39:38.800
World War II about creating a culture of being a self-led team? Yeah. So they had, in the face
00:39:45.120
of their limited resources and, and very, very challenging terrain, they had to make quick
00:39:52.780
decisions on the ground. You know, they're buttoned up in skis and dressed in all white and they're
00:39:59.200
skiing around making quick decisions. And it really enabled them to, you know, have decentralized
00:40:06.160
decision-making back to the earlier point. But the commanders placed a trust in their,
00:40:12.060
and competence in the expertise of their soldiers, even though they didn't necessarily have
00:40:17.500
great training, like a, obviously like a modern day Navy SEAL. But, but the officers really respected
00:40:25.500
the skills of their subordinates. They respected what they brought to the table. And then they fed
00:40:31.960
into that using, you know, guerrilla tactics, you know, reading off of, Hey, this farmer or that
00:40:39.500
mountain man knows this about the terrain. Let's feed into that. Let's exploit the strengths of our team
00:40:46.080
and enable, you know, the culture to really encourage these soldiers to think creatively and adapt
00:40:52.800
to the situation. And so obviously they were extremely clear on their mission. They had trust,
00:41:01.540
decentralized decision-making, empowerment, collaboration, all of it. It was incredible to read
00:41:06.960
and learn of this story of how, you know, they just were just cutting through the opposition left
00:41:13.840
and right. And they wouldn't even see him coming because they had never faced anything like this.
00:41:18.520
Yeah. So yeah, I think it's a great example of self-leadership. There wasn't anyone telling these
00:41:23.520
guys what to do. There was, there was some top-down command, but the top-down command basically let
00:41:28.020
these Finnish guys do, do things according to what they thought fit the situation. It was very
00:41:33.780
decentralized. Yeah. And the Red Army, you know, they thought this was going to be like a week.
00:41:40.120
They thought this was going to be a week. And then three and a half months later, after the initial
00:41:46.080
invasion, they're just still getting hammered, right? They're just getting hammered. So the numbers
00:41:54.080
vary, but if I remember correctly, the Finns suffered, I think 25,000 deaths and the Russians lost around
00:42:04.560
135,000. Yeah. And another 150,000 wounded. So it's, it's pretty remarkable.
00:42:14.500
And they also had this culture in Finland. They had this value called sisu, which is the best
00:42:21.240
translation is it's like grit, determination. And they all shared that. And I think they inculcated
00:42:27.260
that value. I mean, I'm sure their culture already inculcated that value, but them being in the army
00:42:33.500
and trying to do things on a shoestring and being economical and efficient, those types of things
00:42:40.440
really probably reinforced that sisu value of grit and hardyhood and determination.
00:42:50.960
Well, Kyle, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book
00:42:56.220
Thanks so much. www.leadershipisoverrated.com. Please check us out. You can learn more about our services
00:43:04.800
and offering some products. Appreciate your time here, Brett. This has been wonderful learning
00:43:10.820
Fantastic. Well, Kyle Bucket, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:43:14.580
My guest today was Kyle Bucket. He's the co-author of the book, Leadership is Overrated. It's available
00:43:18.460
on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about his work at his website,
00:43:22.660
cultureforce.team. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash teams, where you find links
00:43:27.720
to resources. We delve deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM
00:43:39.400
podcast. Make sure to check out our website at artofmanlius.com, where you find our podcast
00:43:43.040
archives, as well as thousands of articles that we've written over the years about pretty much
00:43:46.360
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00:43:57.700
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00:44:01.580
it's Brett McKay, reminding you to listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.