The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win

by Jocko Willink

  As a platoon commander, one of Seth’s jobs was to find an “exit”—a terrain feature that would allow the SEAL platoon to escape from enemy fire and mask its movement.

  “Roger,” Seth replied. He then moved another ten yards down the ravine, and as he did, another SEAL came back and filled in the gap, as he was supposed to. This was an inherent part of SEAL maneuvers that allowed the leader to move around, to look and see and analyze the terrain. If the leader moved from the standard position, someone else would fill his spot.

  But Seth still couldn’t find an exit, and he was almost out of visual range of the last SEAL who had taken his previous position.

  “I don’t see anything yet, but I’m getting too far away,” he observed.

  “No problem,” I countered. “Wait for the next guy to come back and tell him to fill in the space, then you can go farther.”

  Seth nodded and cracked a smile at me. He was starting to understand: leading wasn’t about him following the exact procedure—it required him to think and do what made the most sense so that he could best support and lead his team.

  “Get down there!” Seth barked, pointing out a position to the next SEAL moving down the ravine in his direction. “I’m finding an exit!”

  The SEAL took a knee. Seth bumped a little farther back, scanning for an exit. Still, he saw nothing.

  “Fill it in there!” he shouted to the next man coming his way in the ravine, pointing to the general location where the SEAL should take position. Seth then turned again to move ahead and look for an exit to get out of the ravine.

  Finally, he found an exit: another ravine broke off to the right and clearly led away from the platoon’s current path of travel. It would make a good route to put distance between them and the enemy contact, while protecting them from incoming fire.

  He took up a position at the corner of the exit. As the next man came down the ravine, Seth shouted, “EXIT HERE! EXIT HERE!” as he pointed down the ravine off to the right. The SEAL followed Seth’s direction, and the rest of the platoon filed by down the new ravine and away from the enemy contact. They continued moving in the new direction for about a hundred meters.

  Seth looked at me. He didn’t say anything, but his face was speaking loud and clear. He didn’t know what to do next.

  “Do you think you broke contact?” I asked him, meaning did he think the enemy was still a threat. The guys were now moving without shooting, indicating that they could no longer see the enemy and therefore the enemy was no longer a threat.

  “For sure,” he answered.

  “Okay,” I said. “So now what do you need?”

  Seth knew exactly what I meant by that.

  “Head count,” he said.

  “Yep. And then?” I asked.

  “Put some more distance between us and the enemy,” he replied confidently.

  “Okay then,” I told him. “Get it done.”

  “Roger,” he replied, beginning to grasp his place as a leader with greater confidence.

  Seth moved ahead a little farther in the patrol, now no longer bound by the standard operating procedures. He quickly found a little depression big enough to accommodate his entire platoon. He set up in the middle of it and gave the hand signal for “perimeter” as his men started to roll in. They saw him and immediately went to their standard assigned positions. Within a minute, all of Delta Platoon was in position, guns covering every direction. Seth received a thumbs-up signal from both squad leaders, indicating they each had a full head count—all SEALs were present—and were ready to move. Seth got up, moved to J.P., and gave him the signal to patrol out, away from enemy contact.

  In the course of a single IAD run, Seth’s ability to lead had increased exponentially, and Delta Platoon’s excellent performance reflected those results. Seth now understood that standard operating procedures were not fixed, inflexible laws with no room for variation. They were guidelines that needed to be balanced with adaptability and common sense. Balancing that dichotomy was required for everyone, especially leaders.

  When he saw Seth’s signal, J. P. Dinnell got up from his position in the perimeter and moved out on patrol, scanning for threats. Seth followed in just behind him, taking his position as the patrol leader. The rest of Delta Platoon got up and followed Seth, just as they would over and over again in the streets of Ramadi.

  Principle

  While “Discipline Equals Freedom” is a powerful tool for both personal and team development, excessive discipline can stifle free thinking in team leaders and team members. Disciplined standard operating procedures, repeatable processes, and consistent methodologies are helpful in any organization. The more discipline a team exercises, the more freedom that team will have to maneuver by implementing small adjustments to existing plans. When facing a mission or a task, instead of having to craft a plan from scratch, a team can follow standard operating procedures for the bulk of the plan. As SEALs, we had SOPs for just about everything we did: the way we lined up and loaded our vehicles, our vehicle and foot patrol formations, the methodologies we used to clear buildings, the way we handled prisoners and dealt with wounded SEALs—the list goes on and on. But those SOPs didn’t constrain us on the battlefield. On the contrary, they gave us freedom. The disciplined SOPs were a line to deviate from, and we had the freedom to act quickly based on those procedures.

  But there must be balance. In some organizations, both in the military and in the civilian sector, there are leaders who put too many standard operating procedures in place. They create such strict processes that they actually inhibit their subordinate leaders’ willingness—and ability—to think. This may adversely impact the team’s performance and become a detriment to the mission, preventing effective leadership at every level of the organization.

  Disciplined procedures must be balanced with the ability to apply common sense to an issue, with the power to break with SOPs when necessary, with the freedom to think about alternative solutions, apply new ideas, and make adjustments to processes based on the reality of what is actually happening. If discipline is too strict, team members cannot make adjustments, cannot adapt, and cannot use their most precious asset—their brains—to quickly develop customized solutions to unique problems for which the standard solution might not work.

  And when taken to an extreme, too much discipline—too many processes and too many standard procedures—completely inhibits and stifles the initiative of subordinates. Instead of stepping up and making necessary changes, leaders confined to strict procedures will simply follow the procedures even when those procedures are obviously leading to failure.

  So as a leader it is critical to balance the strict discipline of standard procedures with the freedom to adapt, adjust, and maneuver to do what is best to support the overarching commander’s intent and achieve victory. For leaders, in combat, business, and life, be disciplined, but not rigid.

  Application to Business

  The VP of sales was a force to be reckoned with. She was aggressive, smart, and experienced. Having risen through the ranks, she knew the business inside and out. The company’s products were solid and provided a true benefit to customers.

  But there was trouble in paradise: declining sales for four straight months. The CEO decided they needed some help and reached out to Echelon Front to assess and provide guidance. As soon as I arrived, I was impressed by the VP of sales, but I could also sense her frustration.

  “What’s been going on?” I asked her.

  “Not enough!” she replied. “Not even close!” She was smiling, but she wasn’t kidding.

  “So I have been told,” I said. “What do you think is going on?”

  She thought for a minute, then replied.

  “Look,” she answered, “I’m not a hundred percent sure. Last year was terrific. We couldn’t seem to do any wrong. All my regional managers were driving their salespeople hard—training them well and putting up great numbers. The frontline salespeople themselves were on fire.”r />
  “Well, that sounds good,” I told her.

  “It was good,” she continued. “Then we hit November—usually a hard month for us—along with December. Our product is practical: home safety, security, and efficiency—not exactly something people ask Santa for.”

  “Not exactly,” I agreed.

  “We wanted to maintain sales and profits through that time period, so we got really aggressive as a leadership team—Default: Aggressive, as you like to say,” the VP continued.

  I laughed, recognizing that she understood the fundamental concepts I often spoke about.

  “That’s awesome,” I told her. “How exactly did you get aggressive?”

  “We got aggressive across the board,” she replied. “We increased our training for our salespeople. Stepped up our monitoring of their sales calls. We tightened the pricing model to increase margin, and we started tracking—and really driving—the number of outgoing calls that each salesperson made every day.”

  “And that didn’t have an impact?” I asked.

  “Not the impact that we wanted it to have,” she said. “I mean, it’s hard to say. This November wasn’t as bad as last November, but it wasn’t near where we wanted it to be.”

  “So then what did you do?” I asked.

  “We doubled down,” the VP said.

  “You doubled down? On what?” I inquired.

  “On everything,” she admitted. “We improved our scripts and trained even harder on them. We had our salespeople reciting their scripts perfectly. They were all nailing it. We went even harder on our pricing to make sure that every deal we made maximized margin. And we increased the number of calls each salesperson was required to make. We cranked up the discipline across the entire sales force,” she explained.

  “And?” I asked.

  “And nothing,” she said.

  “Nothing?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Nothing,” the VP declared. “This December was actually worse than last year. And then, in January, things got even worse. February and March continued down, and April was one of our worst months in three years—and three years ago we were half the size we are now.

  “It is bad,” she said soberly. “And the market is good. Our competitors are doing fine, but we are losing market share. And yet our product is truly better than theirs. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No, it sure doesn’t,” I agreed. “Let me do some digging.”

  Frankly, I was a little worried that I might not be able to figure this one out.

  I spent the next week talking with the seven regional managers who led the sales teams. They were located in two centers, and each had sales teams of five to fifteen salespeople. The salespeople were phone pounders—call center grinders following leads from the Internet, print ads, and mailers. They were relatively young, but also motivated. Some of them had made solid six-figure incomes from their commissions over the past several years. The regional managers—so called because their salespeople worked particular regions of the country—were all good people too. All of them except one had come up through the ranks of the call center. The one who hadn’t was previously a customer relations representative in the field before transitioning in pursuit of a higher income. So they all knew the business, and they knew it well, from their own experience and from the tutelage of the VP of sales.

  I drilled down into the call centers to learn more. At one call center, I brought the four regional managers together in a meeting for some fact-finding.

  “What do you think is going on?” I asked them plainly.

  “No idea,” one of them said.

  “None?” I asked.

  “Not really,” another one replied.

  “Any idea at all?” I asked again, likely sounding pretty desperate.

  The group sat quietly for a little while. Finally, one of the managers spoke up.

  “We have had many ideas. And we’ve hit every sales driver that we know of,” the regional manager said. “We thought maybe our salespeople weren’t introducing the product right or overcoming objections effectively, so we really nailed down the scripting and made it bulletproof. And they all know it cold and know not to deviate from it. Then we saw they were giving away pricing too easily; they were giving discounts that they didn’t have to and we were losing margins. So we tightened that up too. They have much less leeway in the pricing now. And we have increased the number of outgoing calls they have to make—and they are doing it. They are making about thirty percent more calls every day. They are hammering everything, but we are still just losing traction.”

  “Everyone?” I asked. “Every salesperson is going backward?”

  “Yes. Every one of them,” another manager chimed in. “And look—we get Extreme Ownership, we’ve read the book, but I’ll tell you I think we need some new product features … we need to up our game from the technology perspective.”

  “But your VP of sales told me your product is legitimately better than any of your competitors,” I countered.

  “It is,” the manager said. “But there’s nothing new. We need something new to sell—that’s what we need. I’m telling you, our sales force can’t do much more than what they are doing. They are like machines out on that floor right now.”

  I nodded. Something wasn’t adding up. I couldn’t quite understand what it was. “Alright,” I told them. “Let me see what I can figure out.…”

  The next day, I spent time on the front lines with the actual salespeople who made the calls. I listened in on their calls and asked them some questions. Each salesperson I listened to sounded incredibly professional and polished. Their words were scripted, but they said them so naturally that you could barely notice they were all saying the exact same thing. At first, I was impressed. Really impressed. It seemed as if each one of these salespeople deserved an Academy Award for acting.

  But the Academy Award was about the only thing they were winning. I listened as salesperson after salesperson got shot down and failed to close a deal. Their introductions were smooth, but they weren’t getting any traction. When they did get some interest from a potential client, most weren’t able to get through the client’s objections even when giving the proper scripted responses. And those who finally did get through the objections to set up a sale had a really hard time discussing pricing to close the deal. The whole morning, I saw only three deals get closed.

  Finally, at noon I offered to take a few of them to lunch. We went to a burger joint, ordered our food, and sat down to wait for it.

  “So, what is going on?” I asked, opening the conversation. “You all do such a professional job—but sales are down. Any ideas?”

  “I wish I knew!” said one of the younger salespeople. “This is killing me. I might not even be able to continue to work here if I don’t start landing some sales.”

  “I’m in the same boat,” another chimed in. “Something has got to change or I won’t make it.”

  Everyone in the group shook their heads.

  “What are you doing differently now from where you were six months ago?” I asked.

  “I don’t think it is anything we are doing—we have just been getting better,” a salesperson named Jonathan said passionately. “We are better. We are tighter with our scripts and our pricing and how we overcome objections. We are getting after it. We are like sales machines. But things are just going backward.”

  Machines—this was the second time I had heard the sales team referred to as “machines.” I noticed it, but it still didn’t make sense to me.

  “If you are doing everything perfectly, then what are you doing wrong?” I asked.

  The table sat quiet for a minute. Finally, one of the most senior salespeople, Vijay, spoke up. “That’s what we are doing wrong.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “That,” he said. “We are doing everything perfectly, like machines, like robots.”

  Boom. It hit me. Right there—Vijay was right.

  “Too perfec
t? What do you mean by that?” asked one of the other salespeople.

  I listened to Vijay intently to see if he was saying what I was thinking.

  “I mean we do everything too perfectly. We read the script. We answer the questions. We overcome objections. We stick to the pricing model. Let me ask you this: When was the last time you made a person laugh on the other end of the phone?” Vijay questioned the group.

  Nothing but blank faces from the whole team. Their silence made the answer obvious. No one had gotten a laugh from a potential client in a long time.

  “So then what kind of connection are you making with them?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” Vijay said. “None.”

  “Is it possible that in the pursuit of perfection, you all have become too perfect? You have become machines—robots?” I asked.

  “And we all know what you do with a robo sales call. Click—you hang up,” Vijay said.

  He was right. That was it. In trying to boost sales, the leadership team had done what they thought was right. They went Default: Aggressive to implement highly disciplined standard operating procedures. And in doing so, they went too far and took away the freedom of their salespeople to adapt on the front lines. Instead of adapting to a potential customer’s reaction and making some kind of connection, the salespeople were stuck giving the same script over and over and over again. As good as they were at reading the script and as convincing as they sounded, it didn’t matter if they couldn’t have a real conversation with the potential client.

  And that wasn’t the only problem. As I dug down, I found other issues. Because flexibility had been eliminated from the pricing structure, the frontline salespeople couldn’t do anything to close deals that had potential but needed a little nudge to get them over the line. Without the ability to offer a special discount or the power to maneuver on price in any way, the salespeople often had to let interested customers walk.

  Finally, with the minimum number of calls per day increased and strictly enforced, the salespeople gave up too easily during their calls. If they got one indication that they weren’t going to get a deal, they would move on to the next call so they could meet the minimum number of calls required and not be penalized. This was the opposite of what they explained worked better: taking time with a potential client to explain details and build a relationship, thereby increasing the possibility of closing the sale.