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1-Page Summary of Unstoppable Teams
US Navy SEALs and other Special Operations Command warriors work in teams. They don’t want any Rambos.
The US Military’s Special Operations Command has no use for lone-wolf heroes like Rambo. In the military, they consider such people to be reckless and unreliable.
Special Operations Command units work together to achieve big goals. They rely on teamwork and many times they have over-the-horizon (OTH) targets, which is a specialty of the Navy SEALs. Big goals involve the unknown, so teams need to handle something that they can’t see ahead of time.
Organizations need teams that are committed and unstoppable to achieve their objectives. The members of these teams must be diverse and work selflessly to achieve those goals. They often model themselves after Special Operations units like the SEALs, a group that is closely connected with different capabilities but shares the same goal as well as a commitment to each other.
De La Salle High School in Concord, California is a football powerhouse. The De La Salle Spartans have won 151 consecutive games and are undefeated since 1992. Coach Bob Ladouceur attributes the team’s success to its members’ love for one another, devotion and commitment.
The players of De La Salle think of their coach as a tough but loving father. They are like a big family, and the coach is the head of that family. He makes sure everyone plays fair and keeps them in line if they get too cocky. The team has turned down better-paying coaching jobs to stay with him because he’s so good at what he does.
As a team leader, as in all of life, do your best to control what you can.
You can control your thoughts, feelings, and actions. You have more power than you think to make good decisions about what to do in life. If you focus on the things that are important and take action accordingly, your team will be 10 times as effective as a typical team. This is because it uses the “focus-feel-act” formula for success. By expanding your definition of what a team is, you can use this formula to build an even better one with more people involved.
Recruit team members who have complementary capabilities and talents.
In the TV show Super Friends, superheroes like Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman and Cyborg fought villains. The superhero team also included Batman and Robin.
Each superhero had a special power. Superman could fly, Wonder Woman’s bracelets stopped bullets, Aquaman operated under water, and Batman and Robin were inventors.
In a typical episode of the Super Friends, one superhero would get into trouble and need to be rescued by other superheroes. They worked together to save the day. In essence, they were paying homage to teamwork.
To build a great team, you need to find people with certain characteristics. Recruiters should look for seven traits:
“Competence” – Look for team members who are capable of learning new skills and being able to apply those skills. This has nothing to do with academic intelligence or SAT scores; it requires the ability to learn quickly and make use of what they’ve learned.
“Perspective” – Find people who have a thoughtful understanding of how previous experiences shaped their attitudes, beliefs and behavior. People with this perspective believe that they can develop new competencies through hard work and effort. Most members of the US military’s special forces units, including Army Green Berets and Navy SEAL teams, demonstrate these traits.
Communication is important for team members. They need to be able to explain their ideas, persuade others about them and communicate how they feel about difficult topics. This requires the courage to speak honestly, particularly when it comes to awkward things like emotions or disagreements with other people.
