Extreme Ownership

What I Learned

Extreme ownership was a book about leadership in a team setting from 2 navy seals that now run a consulting agency for business leaders. In short the book teaches a number of things about running a  team, from experiences hard learned while deployed at war. The list below is what I got out it.

1. Ownership (taking responsibility)
   • realize in everything you are responsible for your own outcomes, and the outcomes of your team. It is important not to pass the blame around, or blame circumstance for your outcomes, realize that if you’re not getting the results you need, it’s probably cause you did something wrong; there’s something you don’t understand or didn’t account for, and there’s more you need to learn. Step up and take ownership, and it I’ll propagate throughout off levels the team.
   • The book gives plenty of examples from war/ consulting clients on how taking extreme ownership from at leadership, propagates to throughout the team. It also allows people to see you as a responsible person, not one afraid to fail.
2. Goal settings
   • When setting goals it is important to be mission focused, and set small simple milestones that will lead towards a greater goal. Keeping tasks small and simple allows for easier goal tracking and accountability from yourself and that of your team. Just as important to setting goals is to create an plan, and execute according to it. The process of making a process of making  a plan should be standardized and repeatable, so that all members and teams can align with the plan and can be properly communicated.
3. Decision making
   • If you’re not getting your desired outcome is because you’re not making the right decisions. When making decisions it is important to understand the mission objectives, and the wider impact your decisions have on the mission.
   • It’s also important to note, when working with others decision they make that have impacted you, are usually not a direct offence to you. People normally make decision to improve the current situation, and in some cases don’t think of the repercussions. Be mindful when making decisions, keep the mission objectives in mind and think about what your decision might affect.
4. Understanding others
   • When working with a team, and/or interacting with other teams it’s necessary to see things from their point of view. This allows you to understand their situations, their way of thinking and decision making. Learn to cover and move, know your team, as you’re responsible for their outcome and have their back.
5. Prioritizing
   • When executing a mission/goal, attack each task from highest to lowest priority. To do so you need to know what’s the expected outcome of each task, and how it helps you achieve the goal at hand.
6. Decentralized Command
   • Teams that are too big don’t get don’t tend to be efficient. According to the authors the ideal size for team should be 5-6 folks. This means you’ll normally have to rely on other teams, to get things done. The proper way to delegate among, different teams, by decentralized command.
   • Have leaders of individual teams, in-charge of executing specific tasks. They need to step up and be accountable for the performance of their teams. Leadership is responsible for the correct delegation, and accountable for the totality of the outcome. Think of a military scenario: Alpha team, assigned to task 1, Bravo team, assigned to task 2, and so on.
7. Analyzing outcomes
   • After each task/milestone completion, it’s important to do an operational debrief. Looking back at:
     • What was done?
     • How it was done?
     • Where did you succeed?
     • Where did you fail?
     • What could have been done better?
     • Hindsight is 20/20, so take time learn from the lessons of the past, and improve your future.
8. Discipline
   • Build habits and routines that can liberate you from indecisiveness, like if X then Y is the standard response. Building discipline can be hard, but once the routines are set, it provides you freedom. Freedom from too many decision or indecision, freedom in time and builds a character that can conquer temptations. Treat all new habits you’re trying to develop as a battle which you aim to win.
   • The alarm clock goes off, are you disciplined enough to get up and win the day?