Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!

I’m at ACEC in Orlando this week. The conference usually has some high quality speakers and this year was no different.

Robert O’Neill, the Navy Seal who reportedly pulled the trigger to remove the threat that was Osama Bin Laden provided the crowd of 800+ some inspiration and national pride.

As we learned, the term “boys across the street” was used within the seals to describe the most elite. Plain vanilla seals have an 8 month vetting program where only 20% even pass. Seal Team VI was another grueling program, an additional 9 months. As his psychiatrist said after one of the battery of tests, we’re not checking to see if you’re crazy, we’re just trying to figure out what flavor you are.

He was engaging, very well spoken and provided some lessons on how we can behave more like a Team:

•When morale is high, people work better together
•Nobody wants to work for a jerk
•Take emotion out of the decision making process
•Don’t react, Do respond
•No matter how bad it gets, don’t quit
•Little victories!
•Tomorrow is a clean slate, don’t quit now, quit tomorrow
•Stress is a choice, lay it down by your bed at night and decide if you’re going to pick it up in the morning
•Bravery is not the absence of fear, it’s about acknowledging it and choosing to take action anyway
•It’s OK to be afraid
•Panic is contagious
•Complacency kills
•Success breeds complacency
•A great learning tool is failure-own it
•Be prepared to fight
•Perform under fire
•Trust your people
•Never quit

Advice he received from his first commander:
“You’re about to go to war for the first time and the enemy is your doubts, your fears and everyone back home who said you’d never make it…keep your head down, keep moving forward, never quit and you’ll be fine.”

Robert’s theater was war.
My theater is business.
There are a number of unmistakeable parallels.

The good new is you don’t have to kill terrorists today.  You just need to influence your workers not to act like one.

Have a blessed weekend!