Navigating Chaos. Jeff Boss
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need to stay relevant, fight the current by instituting longer workdays, investing in more analysis, and demanding more from their employees overall.
Sports Snapshot
Before sport science became a field of study, athletes and coaches trained in a linear fashion. That is, they believed that to become better they just needed to improve one’s physical capacity by working harder, putting in longer hours, honing their technique, and competing more often.
Over the years, however, science improved. Discoveries in human performance were made that suggested the opposite: too much focus on one particular “silo” of training led to faster athlete burnout and actually inhibited performance.
What sport science discovered was this: for an athlete to perform optimally, he or she requires a multidimensional training regimen. That is, the physical performance associated with top-tier athletes entails not just role-specific training (i.e. sprinters sprinting, weight lifters lifting) but also nutrition, mental fortitude, sport psychology, biomechanics, economy of motion, and rest and recovery. If an athlete only has one piece of this so-called “performance puzzle,” then his or her overall performance will never reach an optimal state. To perform optimally physically, one must also possess the mental, emotional, and spiritual faculties to face hardship, endure difficulty, become motivated even when not, and ceaselessly pursue a higher purpose that drives him or her to continually improve.
Now, if we take this sport-specific example of multidimensionality and apply it to one’s everyday life, team, or company, what changes?
Nothing. The same multifaceted approach to performance—the balance of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual capacities—still exists.
In other words: the typical organizational response to chaos is to become more efficient—to improve productivity—and the byproduct is increased stress for each and every employee. Greater stress levels lead to toxic environments, impatience, communicative challenges, and short-term focus—the very antithesis of superior performance. Under this scenario, the work-life balance unfavorably comes to lean toward work, and as a result, the company’s employees suffer. Their personal reservoirs of emotional and spiritual fulfillment, for example, get depleted and refilled with unnecessary stress. Their career life expectancy becomes a time fuse, and the countdown begins until that person explodes.
The challenge, though, is in combating these types of knee-jerk reactions that arise when uncertainty presents itself. The normal response is to fight chaos with chaos by working harder in hopes of improved returns. What really happens in these situations, however, is the proliferation of chaos. In response to the uncertainty “out there,” the busy worker bees inside the organization work more frantically, thus increasing the chaos “in there.” Then, as a means of reducing the amount of uncertainty, people dig deeper into the weeds, analyzing more and scrutinizing everything in hopes of making the “best” decision. What results is analysis paralysis: seemingly endless meetings that adjourn with no one left in any better a position than the one they were in when they started.
The secret is to keep the performance capacities (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) fulfilled, as doing so sustains energy levels to perform, to adapt, and to lead. By meeting the threshold of uncertainty posed by Murphy (of Murphy’s Law) with the four pillars of performance, we can chip away at the daily challenges that arise and slap them in the face—hard.
Whether it’s the SEAL Teams or business, every organization requires a broad spectrum of effort—the product of physical capability, mental capacity, emotional endurance, and spiritual enlightenment—to work through adversity. One must possess both “the skill and the will” to operate in any environment at any time for an indefinite period whenever a new threat (read: competitor) emerges. Therefore, when a person is fit, it means that his or her potential is limitless such that this hypothetical individual could run, swim, lift weights, move their body weight, or demonstrate flexibility anywhere, at any time. In the business sense, a fit individual understands the current trends affecting each department and the purpose of the organization such that he can make sales decisions even outside his field of specialty because he has the know-how and know-why to perform across multiple sectors, industries, and modalities.
In the SEALs, this concept of fitness has both deep and broad impacts upon performance. Sure, being physically fit enough just to get to some of the targets we pursue is more than half the battle—that’s the physical part. Once we’re facing the enemy’s front door, the physical part is over; now it’s time to switch into the right mental and emotional gear based on the spiritual fulfillment that drove you there. After all, it sure wasn’t the handsome paycheck that attracted you.
The skill and will to span such a broad spectrum of abilities rests upon what I call the 4 Pillars of Performance, as depicted in the following image:
However, individual fitness alone will only take you so far. There needs to be trust throughout the team that other individuals and departments are capable of carrying out the mission.
What happens if fitness, as defined here, is lacking? Take the example of the Olympic power lifter, who may be able to power clean three hundred pounds but can’t run a mile to save her life. If the power lifter enters a triathlon, she probably won’t make it through the first mile because cardiovascular endurance is not something that she trains for; it isn’t specific to her mission. In other words, she fails because her focus up to this point has been myopic under one silo.
Of course, not everybody in an organization needs the same level of awareness. What does the Olympic body builder stand to gain by getting in shape to run a marathon if its not going to help her attain the ultimate goal of that gold medal in lifting? Not much. Marathon training might even detract from her main goal. But what does an organization stand to gain from its CEO, CFO, COO, and other head honchos each understanding the intricacies of one another’s jobs and the ultimate goals that they’re working toward? Plenty.
Similarly, employees in marketing, sales, or customer service silos are generally fit to work within their division because they are functionally excellent in their roles. Ask them something about another business function, however, and their knowledge base wanes. It’s a myopic view of the company that limits decision-making, awareness, and therefore, progress.
The rest of this book is a purge of ideals and beliefs that I have both experienced as a SEAL to navigate uncertainty and seen as a coach for individuals and companies. Let’s begin.
The Paradox Of Uncertainty
Getting out of the military was an easy choice for a number of reasons.
First, the challenge and excitement just weren’t there anymore. You can only do the same thing for so long before becoming complacent, and chasing bad guys wasn’t something I wanted to be lackadaisical about—for me or for the guys I worked with.
Second, there’s an emotional toll that weighs down heavily upon each operator after constantly being “on the hook” for global threats or crises to arise.
Of course, there was also the bureaucratic BS that pervades every organization. Different leaders reacted differently to stress. Some comported themselves well and put the mission first while others allowed stress to impact their decision-making. I use the word “allowed” because that’s just what it is: a choice to open oneself to external influences because the core self lacks the self-awareness to slap adversity in the face and say, “Get outta here. I got this.”
Most of our actions at the operator level relied upon the decisions made by senior leaders, and if the decision-making process stalemated for any reason, then momentum lagged across the whole organization—as did results. When this happened—when there was an impetus for action but a lack of contextual awareness—there was only one thing us operators could do: we needed to adapt. We needed to make use of the minimal guidance we had because the problem set (i.e. the threat or crisis) wasn’t going to go away, and the only way to solve it was to fill the gap.
Gaps are temporary oversights: