Tom Rancich on Teamwork

Look who came to visit Team Perfect! Teammates, for those of you who don't know him, former SEAL Tom Rancich was the first guest blogger on CHARLIE MIKE. Tom and I go way back! I met Tom during BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL) training. I was class leader of BUD/S Class 181 but was pulled out for medical reasons and rolled into Class 182. Tom was the class leader of BUD/S Class 182 – when I came in halfway through as the assistant class leader. Tom was pulled for medical reasons but I was secured. And the story Tom tells is that he was the one to get my guys into shape, thus making my job ever so much easier!

And here we are, years later, and Tom's still making my job easier. As longtime Perfect Fitness teammate Nancy in NC said, "SEALs are all about teamwork [] Any tips on team building and motivation?" Tom Rancich was and is the best leader ever -- that being said, I'm re-running a blog from him on Teamwork -- thanks brother! AMM

Question from Nancy in NC: So, you and Alden are obviously great motivators. How do you take a group of individuals, with their own self interests and personal goals, and motivate them to work as a team? I'm not referring to exercise here, but more team building at work or in a civic club situation.

Answer: The very first thing to do is to define what your organizational needs are. Very few organizations actually need a true team, or a least a team as I choose to define it--(Team- A group of people who have undergone advanced/ specialized training and been specifically forged into a highly committed, capable, mission specific, performance oriented operational entity).

But rather they need to improve their group performance (again, as I chose to define it. Group- A task oriented compilation of people based on individual skills relative to the projected skills required). Now the reason I define things this way is that I assert that the dictionary definitions are inadequate to properly define the future requirements of the team/group and thus makes achieving that status highly unlikely.

So the first thing that an organization really needs to do is clearly and accurately define what are their:

1. Goals
2. Mission
3. Vision
4. Critical values
5. Organizational imperatives
6. Organizational philosophies

From that start you will have defined the type of people and the type of interaction/communication you need. It is a lot of work, but this will also clearly show how people are to be and most importantly, the benefit to the individuals for being that way.

I have long believed that all SEAL training and operational successes come down to two simple critical values that all SEALs must possess: Never quit, Never leave your buddy. That is the bedrock foundation of everything else we do.

Tom Rancich
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Lt. Commander Thomas Rancich, US Navy SEAL (Ret.) is the co-founder of VRHabilis, a disabled veteran-owned small business that seeks to employ the highly trained and motivated veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for work in construction and related fields. Rancich and co-founder Elliott Adler are pioneering the concept of using adaptive technology to bridge the gap between industrial and medical technology. Their company contributes proceeds to two worthy causes: a fund for the development of adaptive technology that will allow disabled veterans to pursue their desired career path and the EOD Wounded Warrior Fund.

Advantage of Adversity Pt 2

Teammates, this bears repeating: you can’t learn the confidence adversity teaches you in a classroom or from a book – you can’t fake it – you learn it from experience – there’s no short cut – period.

Six weeks before I started Hellweek I was getting to know my classmates. One classmate – let’s call him Schmuckatelli -- was boasting about how he was going to “smoke” Hellweek (smoke = ace it) because for the last 2 years he had been taking cold showers (I’m not kidding) and Hellweek is about being cold, therefore he proclaimed he was more than ready for Hellweek … well Schmuckatelli didn’t even make it to Hellweek – he quit 3 weeks into training. My point, you are only as strong (mentally and physically) as the adversity you have overcome. In SEAL Team we live by this correlation, it’s our secret weapon to success, which is why we used to lose more SEALs in training than in war. Recent events have unfortunately reversed this statistic – and it’s not that we’re proud to admit we lose teammates in training - but rather it’s our willingness to embrace adversity with the knowledge that Nietzsche has so succinctly summed up: “that which does not kill you makes you stronger”. Nietzsche's statement is a window into SEAL confidence that has been built through their personal experience of overcoming the adversity of Hellweek. And it only gets stronger as the candidates are tested with more challenging adversities, and, by the way, it’s what makes SEALs so exceptional at what they do.

So what’s this all mean to you? Simply this: adversity and the struggles and hardships that come with it make you stronger – they will empower you to get what you want out of life. If it were easy, everyone would do it, but you’re not just anyone, you’re on a mission – a mission after your dreams, your goals – a mission to maximize your life.

So the next time adversity comes knocking, welcome it and then knock it back with a vengeance of persistent action so overwhelming that any future adversities that come down your path are no longer considered adversities, they’re treated as opportunities to excel. This, my teammates, is the advantage of adversity.

Go challenge yourself!

CHARLIE MIKE -- ALDEN

Picture of the Great Wall of China courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net