Leadership Under Fire

The current economic crisis is affecting all businesses in one way or another. As business owners, it is our duty and our responsibility to lead our organizations through these difficult times. Recently a group of entrepreneurs and I were fortunate to learn some lessons in corporate leadership from a rather unconventional source, a group of former Navy SEALs. What I learned during a four-day boot camp with the Young Presidents’ Organization’s YPO/U.S. Navy SEALs Challenge in October 2008 also can help you and your organization through these difficult times.

Training is vital: During the program the physical training, which included ocean swimming, carrying heavy logs, pull-ups for food, and sleep deprivation, was designed to push our mental and physical limits as well as teach us to work as a team. Constant training is an essential reason why the Navy SEALs are always ready to perform any mission, and should be part of the culture of all businesses. The company that is not learning is not growing. You should constantly challenge yourself to improve your organization.

Define your mission: For the SEALs, defining the mission and objective is critical to the success of the team. In business, sometimes the big goal may seem too great to achieve; for example, a company with revenues of $5 million wants to grow to $10 million in two years. Some of the missions we executed in our training seemed equally as daunting. To make it easier, we identified the big objectives, broke them down into incremental goals, and then into individual tasks. Success became a function of everyone completing individual tasks within the structure of the team.

Gather intelligence: Information is the most powerful weapon and tool for success. After defining our mission, we then gathered as much intelligence on the target, its surroundings, threats, opportunities, and possible contingencies. Intelligence is vital to the success of a military mission as it is to the success of your business. When you know what is going on with your company, customers, employees, competition, and your marketplace, you can you identify opportunities, open up new ideas, and formulate a proper plan for success.

Plan, plan, plan: Planning is vital. This is putting the intelligence you gathered into practical application and thinking through contingencies and obstacles. During our training, we had to plan each mission, but sometimes only had a few minutes to do so. With the current economic crisis, businesses also don’t have the luxury of time and need to assess their situations quickly and put plans in place to move forward. Plans provide solid instructions on how you will reach your objectives. Without a plan, employees lack direction and can become frustrated and uninspired. Just as the SEALs come together to complete a mission, your organization will work together to reach its goals, if you have a plan.

Embrace and adapt to change: In war - as in life – the only constant is change. During our missions the instructors constantly altered situations and threw obstacles in our way. We quickly learned to assess the situation, formulate a strategy, communicate to our team, and execute the new plan. In business, change can derail your team. As the leader you have to teach your team to understand that change is inevitable and provide them a process to handle it. By doing so you will create a strong, adaptable organization that will meet its objectives no matter what happens in the market.

Answering the call: During the presidential election we often heard about the dreaded “2am phone call” and which candidate could be trusted to answer it. Businesses got their call in September with the collapse of the credit market. As leaders, we have no choice but to answer it. When I was roused from my bunk by my instructors at 2am for the first of many grueling, cold water conditioning sessions in the 60 degree ocean, I was disoriented, confused, and barely alert, much like many of you feel today; afraid to act and unsure of what to do. I learned a game plan, a template to deal with any situation and overcome it. Today many of us are in a battle for the very survival of our businesses. Just as the SEALs accomplish the impossible missions, you can succeed by adopting these principals in your business. And while failure is not an option for a SE AL, it is also not an option for us as business leaders today.