Extreme Ownership
There are plenty of books about management. Rarely you can find a book that’s worth reading. “Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win” by Jocko Willinck and Leif Babin is an exception. It is written well and describes simple actionable principles of management with examples.
Jocko and Leif were leaders of SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser. They learned valuable lessons about leadership in a tough environment: Ramadi, the most violent and dangerous battlefield in Iraq. When they returned from deployment, they were training the next generation of SEAL leaders. Then they launched a company Echelon Front that teaches the leadership principles to leaders in business.
Authors organized the book into 12 chapters. Each chapter describes one leadership principle. A chapter starts with a case study from SEALs. Then the principle is described. The chapter concludes with a case study from the business environment. Stories are quite entertaining. The principles are simple. Authors do a great job describing the importance of these principles and how to apply them.
The most important principle is “Extreme ownership”. The leader owns everything that can impact the mission. One of the subordinates made a mistake? That’s the leader’s fault, she didn’t train well or didn’t describe the strategy well. Another team did something wrong or unexpected? That’s the leader’s fault; he didn’t set up communication well. Did something go not as planned? That’s the leader’s fault; she should have planned better, adding risk mitigation for potential issues. That’s the attitude that helps the leader to do better. That also improves the morale of the team.
“Believe.” If the leader gets a task from higher-ups and doesn’t understand why they want this task to be executed, or doesn’t agree with the goal, there is no way the leader will be successful. The leader should believe in the mission before he brings it to his team. There are two possibilities: either the leader asks questions about the reason behind until he understands it, or makes an argument to higher leaders that the mission doesn’t make sense. Either way, this should be resolved before the action. Only then the leader can explain the mission well to the team. And the team must know “why” because it is the single most important thing. If the team understands “why” then it will be more successful in acting according to the goal without extra supervision.
“Cover and move.” That’s about helping your peers. In any environment, it’s important to establish good relationships with other teams. Often the mission is impossible without help from your peers.
“Simple.” Make plans simple. The situation on the ground will be more complex and chaotic that you plan anyway. Adding complication on top of a complex plan makes it impossible. Try to plan as simple as possible.
“Prioritize and execute.” A simple principle. If you have multiple problems to solve, don’t try to solve all of them at once, even if you think all of them are important. Prioritize and execute one by one, giving 100% of attention to one problem at a time. That’s applicable on multiple levels, from a single person to a large organization. Do you have ten initiatives that your organization focuses on? Maybe you’ll be better of if you focus on one.
“Decentralized command.” That’s probably my favorite. For a leader, it’s impossible to manage more than few people. As I remember, authors said that the limit is four people in case of the military environment. If your organization is larger, you have to delegate. To delegate efficiently, you need to train your team well, give them resources they need, and, most importantly, trust them.
There are few more principles described in the book. I like that these principles are very practical and simple. You can apply them immediately. Though, as authors say, they are simple but not easy. Being a leader is still more art than science.
