Together we lift. I will not let my sister or brother down in service.

What’s behind Navy SEAL accountability?

Over the last three years, I’ve listened to leaders struggle with improving accountability in their organizations. The ones that succeed at it have something in common with Navy SEALs. Accountability doesn’t create great teams, great teams in belonging inspire great accountability and optimal performance. Here's a little dive into creating leadership and behaviors that bring about Navy SEAL team-like capabilities and accountability, and, a little human science behind why.

People try out for and join the Navy SEALs. They're not conscripted, nor forced. They choose the tribe and the tribe chooses them. It's extreme belonging. You violate the ethos, you're out. SEALs learned a long time ago that a heart for each other, trumps fear of anything, any day. It's the will that leads to skill. It's a heart-set, a mindset. There are enough things to fear from the outside, and, that if you have to fear things from the inside too, those things will divide your focus and always keep you from doing your best in the service of your mission.

SEALs ultimately train to swap self-preservation with team-preservation in pursuit of the objective. In their autonomy, they ultimately have the option to cancel the objective if it's at the team’s peril. It’s their choice to belong that creates deep accountability. You can’t give an order to care about somebody or something. That just doesn't work. They give that state of care to each other willingly. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that level of inspired accountability within your own organization?

For SEALs, service and team matter most, and because of that, they pursue and practice excellence in emotional ability and technical skills in order to never let their teammates down. They epitomize a tribal motivational model- People, Purpose, and then Pay.

We as humans will:

We’ll die for each other,
Join another’s cause, or
Exchange our time and effort as a commodity for money.

SEALs will sacrifice everything for each other. They joined the cause in brotherhood and sisterhood, making it their own. But, they’re not mercenaries exchanging their effort for dollars. I’ve never heard it said that somebody became a Navy SEAL for the money.

Below is the summary of the SEAL creed/ethos (less the combat-explicit stuff, and I also added the link to the full creed below). Imagine saying this about your company's people.

In serving, they choose to join those who’ve gone before, giving loyalty to cause and team, placing the security and welfare of others before their own.

Owning their own of their emotions and control of them, regardless of circumstances, acting with uncompromising integrity, they expect to lead and be led. They will draw upon every ounce of strength to protect their teammates and accomplish the mission. Lacking orders, they will take charge and never be out of the fight.

The lives of their teammates and success depend upon each as an individual in service, and training is never complete.

Actions are guided by the principles that they serve to defend. In the worst of conditions, the legacy of their teammates steadies their resolve and silently guides their every deed. They will not fail.

Link to the full creed: click here

Use belonging to grow a Team First Operating System (Team OS)

They are teammates before they are snipers, comms, ops, intel… etc. In their pursuit of the mission, they’re given an objective, versus a plan. They are trusted and given their autonomy to figure it out, because their commitment to mastery is second to none. Their commitment is motivated by, not letting each other down, in their pursuit of the objective’s purpose. In short, it’s belonging.

SEALs train so that when they’re in the worst of circumstances, their team matters the most. In the top image, failing to hold that telephone pole up has more to do with team first growth than the physical endurance training. To let that pole drop is to let your team down. They achieve a team-first focus by practicing behaviors that demonstrate and shape an attitude of care for each other, even under extreme duress. Making a mistake is not a mistake. However, making a mistake that puts your team at risk and not growing past it, that’s a mistake.

The context is always for each other. As a result of their practices, they’re always generating the love and confidence chemicals of oxytocin and serotonin, even in the most difficult of situations. When everything goes sideways, they still have their O and S intact. That means they always have a resiliency that's motivated by the love for each other. You can think of their practice and producing oxytocin and serotonin as their belonging “OS” (Team OS) for deep, resilient, and optimal teamwork. The more belonging they practice, the more oxytocin and serotonin they have, which makes belonging more natural and easier on their team. When the shit hits the fan, their hearts and brains are just more physiologically capable.

(Yes, I realize this is a narrow focus and somewhat of a simplification of SEAL, or any other military training, I’m doing so to stay on target though.)

We’re human beings and whether or not we’re Navy SEALs, it’s simple, what we practice is what we do under pressure. If you don't practice belonging in leadership and in simulated difficulty, you won't do it when it matters, because you won't have a good supply of oxytocin and serotonin.

That Team OS is within your reach too!

Now, your normal non-SEAL workplace doesn't have the life-and-death aspect of people trying to kill you, bullets flying at you, and bombs, and whatever else. However, you have the same circuitry in your brain and you’re just processing the tribal and economic threats, and pressure of the daily workday. You could say it’s the “subtle tribal-economic life and death” stuff. Guess what? They might as well be bullets and bombs. Your heart and brain treat them the same way. We're all part of the greater human tribe. The threat your non-special ops people do face, the competition from outside companies trying to destroy you, and at minimum, make you a distant second place to them.

Like the SEALs, we must and can develop our love and confidence chemicals too. We've all snapped or been subpar under stress. Heck, I just flinched, reliving some of my more recent moments while writing that last sentence. We can do a lot less of the subpar and then perform a lot better with coaching and practicing belonging. That’s what develops our Team OS. And yes, I get it, practice in your business world usually happens in real-time. You don’t get to take timeout in a business training field, to hone your skills for each other. That doesn’t change the fact though, that in the tough moment, we do what we practice. Or, we don’t do what we should’ve practiced.

To keep or get your Team OS in your companies, you gotta practice behaviors that live-out your shared and guiding values, and, develop an uncompromised team-first-ethos in service of your company or tribal purpose (your Why?). Some might say that's hard to measure. So what, if you don't, you'll never be able to measure your advancing. You'll be a bit aimless.

Any behavior/action can be defined, tracked, and measured as a lead measure, and then checked to see if it moves the lag measure, a desired contributing outcome. It's as simple as: (Define X to Move Y by When)

Defining what the behavior emotionally looks and feels like, and then doing it (the lead measure). Yes, it is hard work and takes some emotional wrestling.
Then, we track how often we do it (the lead measure) over a specified time.
Ultimately, checking to see if we're getting to the finish line (lag measure) all together, better, and faster because of it.
And that finish line measure is this: are we as a tribe, happier and healthier, emotionally, physically, and economically?
Further, we always extend our tribe-ness to the customer. Wash, rinse, and repeat for each guiding value and measured impact.

Here's an example:

(It entails the shared core values and purpose of a company I admire. I added a hypothetical 😉 issue.)

We have the core value belief statement, “Everyone deserves to be inspired” (connected to a core guiding value to be lived for belonging).
We have an aspiration: “to build trusting relationships and deliver inspired results” (guiding core purpose aspired).
The problem- unchecked urgency causes behaviors that lead to leaders/employees experiencing only task-related contexts and narrow perceptions of failure or success with each other. This leads to dehumanizing a person to a role or task, paving the way for a fear-based culture, with decreased innovation and increased conflict flashpoints, as self-preservation displaces team-preservation. We end up making judgments about each other from a reactionary state and limited to a narrow results-context.
The solution- establish lead measures for belonging, to practice, and track in the real-time of business. Yes, you have to be genuine when doing these. Do any three of these per day- your people will feel more connected and accountable to each other: (X to Y by When = belonging in expanded perspective to value that everyone on your team deserves to be inspired!)
Lead Measures (none of these cost money)

Smile at –they'll give you a smile when you need it
Be sorrowful with -they will give their shoulder in return
Listen to -they will hear you and each other in return
Give compassion - they will pay it forward to each other
Have their backs –they will have yours, each other’s, and your customers’
Do what you say -they will repay you with accountability
Show gratitude –they’ll give you grace and thanks when you need it

Using these as lead measures has a twofold impact:

Impacts: one, in a neuro-mirroring aspect, like brain centers are activated between us when we experience any of these from each other, and two, when we actualize (feel, realize, and internalize) this transforms into a positive emotional influence within us. This creates togetherness even though we may be in a struggle toward achieving a work goal. When you’re in belonging, you can be in a very high state of happiness even during a really tough struggle. Guess what, happy and fulfilled people have way higher productivity.

Expected change from the Belonging Lead measures, the Lag measures, and Employee NPS :

Your employees start belonging
Employees (think of them as leaders in training) feel more valued as whole people and thus are inspired to go the extra mile, encourage and help each other to do so
Employees are more likely to ask for the help they need, as they need it, versus getting into trouble for failing later
Leaders (managers) handle work relational difficulties with higher empathy or human-ness, and take compassionate action to get employees into a better space and back into optimal performance sooner
Leaders get a better understanding into their employees’ lives for what will be an easier pathway to inspire them or get them what they need
Individual accountability for each other goes up
Production goes up with fewer errors
Employee turnover rates drop

Each value or aspiration that you have, has a set of behaviors that will manifest it throughout your organization, to the delight or dismay of your people, and likewise, ultimately to your customers.

For each, it's wash, rinse repeat like the above- set up a coaching or mentoring program to scale it throughout your organization. Note, just like the Navy SEALs, you can't force people into this. You can however evangelize it, invite them to be in a place of such enviable service and performance, and value. Then it’s coach, motivate, grow, and train them. Recognize and reward them for these behaviors and their outcomes. It’s inspiration and influence versus command-and-control (II vs. CC). You'll find out rather quickly when people aren't in belonging. They won’t uphold your company ways to belong, and they won’t anchor in shared belief. At that point, do the good thing and help them find a place where they do belong. That very well may not be at your company.

The Mission Debrief:

You can have Navy SEAL-like belonging and accountability in your organization.
Clearly define your team-first belonging values/ethos and live them without compromise. Your Team OS requires it.
Invite your people into living those values, coaching them, and giving time to master them. It's how you build the neurochemistry and patterns to do better and better.
Practice those clearly defined behaviors in accord with those values. (Remember, you’re defining what the behavior emotionally looks and feels like.)
Track and measure both your lead and lag behavioral measures for belonging
In doing so you and your people will keep your Team OS at optimal levels and generate deep accountability towards each other, and, grow the excellent emotional and technical abilities to handle whatever unforeseen things that’ll come their way.

Thanks for reading this. I hope you found it helpful.

Peace, Paul

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