The next level

It is apparent to me that people everywhere, especially leaders are all under the same pressure- get to the next level.  Whether it's growth, efficiency, strength or speed, the status quo is the enemy.  Managers want staff that understand that, and can contribute to achieving the right results at the right time.  Senior managers want managers that understand what results their teams should be achieving, and can drive their teams to meet those goals.  CEO's want senior management to deliver results, while operating with minimal direction.  It doesn't matter what type of organization you work for, what team you are a part of, or if you are operating as an independent entrepreneur, we are all expected to get to the next level.  Individuals that fail to understand this dynamic are at risk of being outpaced in their organizations or teams.  Those that recognize the need to get to the next level, and can consistently achieve it will benefit in their quest for continued advancement.

How do you do it?  For starters, you need understand that to get to a new level requires advancing from the current level.  We will call the current level normal.  Normal isn't the goal.  If you have come to believe that it is, then let's pause here and do a quick mental reset.  Normal isn't the goal or the expectation for very much in life.  Somewhere beyond normal is the goal. 

How do you get there? 

In order to get beyond normal you must understand three things. The first thing you have to figure out and accept with honesty is to know where you are.  Knowing where you are will tell you what normal is.  If you are struggling with that knowledge you cannot progress.  Whether you work for a large corporation, you are an entrepreneur, an athlete, soldier or you are just trying to progress on personal level in your sport or hobby, you have to be absolutely sure you understand where you are.  I'll use an example from the Military.  The Army's SF Selection course (SFAS) is famous for land navigation tests, called the "STAR Course".  Each STAR course can cover 15-25 Kilometers, and you are required to pass them multiple times. You are tested in the daytime, night time, good weather, bad weather and all while carrying a heavy ruck.  When you are navigating really long distances at night and with a 60-70 lb. ruck it can be very easy to lose track of where you are, on a detailed level.  The darkness, hunger, fatigue and weight of the ruck on your back are all factors that can easily disorient you.  You'll keep track of the big pieces of information normally and probably remember that you are in the US, in the State of North Carolina and near Ft. Bragg.  But those facts are not sufficient when you are aiming for a single, very small point in the distance, and in the dark. You have to know where you are down to a specific, very precise position on the map if you expect to find your destination (usually a grumpy retired Green Beret in a tent).  When you are desperate to pass a STAR course and you become disoriented, you have to stop, maybe take your ruck off for a minute, and do a map check.  You HAVE to figure out where you are. There is no other way you can move forward if you don't.  Each of us has our own unique factors in our lives that constantly disorient us in our pursuit of advancement. We have our own darkness, fatigue, hunger and heavy rucks to carry.  How you do your own map check at your job, with your business or your own performance goals will differ based on your unique circumstances, but you must figure out where you are.  You need to spend enough time on this step to make sure you really understand it. You have to remove the emotion, attitude, pride and ego from the equation, and get down to the bare bones facts of your situation. Find your own way to disconnect and gain perspective.  On a STAR course, at night that means pulling out your map, small red light, and crawling under a poncho to ensure that no light escapes while you try to figure out where you are.  How you perform your personal map check will be unique, but it will probably require a serious pause in your current routine, getting some sleep and finding a place you can stare at your own map for as long as you need to in order to orient yourself. 

"Somewhere beyond normal is the goal"

The second thing you have to understand is what goal you are pursuing.  Where are you trying to get to?  What are you expected to achieve (what does your boss, or team expect of you)?  What do you want your business to do?  If figuring out where you are can be compared to a map check, then figuring out where you need to go is like your own personal mission brief.  Only don't expect to be spoon fed the instructions or handed your mission brief by your boss or those in charge.  Sometimes that happens but often especially in corporations, in business or in our personal goals, we don't have the benefit of having a clear plan handed to us.  Even in cases where we are expected to perform in such a way as to achieve goals that are clearly part of someone else's plan, you cannot expect to have the instructions handed to you.  This is just the way it is, especially in the modern era.  Accept it and move on.  You have to realize that you must create your own personal or team mission brief to guide you.  You've done your map check and figured out where you are, now devote the time necessary to learn where you need to go.  If you work in a large organization, you have plenty of resources available to help.  Personal dialogue with those above, behind and to the left and right of you, online information from your company's website, business journals, industry news and company events are all things you can access to improve your knowledge of your organization's goals. Start volunteering for more and be present in more places, especially if it puts you in position to improve your situational awareness about your organization's goals.  If you are an entrepreneur or on an individual quest, use your mentors or trusted friends to help you understand where you need to go. Remember, you've got the heavy ruck on, and it's digging into your shoulders while you are rushing to your destination.  Pause and ask those in your life who have already passed the STAR course to help you understand where to go.  It is important to have at least one, very clear and very specific objective in the near future that you are aiming for.  Next level performance requires immediate or short term performance improvement.  This isn't the time for your 5 year plan.  Daily, weekly and monthly are the time frames you need to operate in, to move into the next level. 

The third, and perhaps most critical thing you have to figure out, in order to get to the next level, is what action is necessary to move from where you are to where you need to go?  Achieving next level performance often requires a combination of boldness, strength, endurance and skill.  Let's go back to the STAR course example.  When you've drifted off course, and figured it out, your not "out of the woods" yet.  There's a few things you've got to do if you want to fix your errors and pass the course.  The first is you've got to put your ruck back on and start moving (boldness).  If you've made a big error, then you've probably got to move faster than you were previously because you are now behind schedule (strength/endurance).  You've then got to move in a direction that gets you back to your original course while keeping track of your time, distance and how fast you are traveling and maintain the focus necessary to negotiate new obstacles and avoid making another mistake (skill).  On a STAR course it's easy to know what you need to do. The skills required to be successful are walking long distances, with a heavy pack, while reading a map and compass and following an azimuth that is leading you towards your objective.  It's often much more complicated than that in other parts of our lives.  Most of the time only you, once you've figured out the first two steps in getting to the next level, will understand what action is required in your individual life to get there.  Do you need to invest more time at work?  Do you need to invest more in your education (whether formally or informally)?  Do you need to learn new technology?  Do you need to hire more or build a different team?  Do you need to have more adventure or create more balance so you can stay in sync with how you want to live?  Do you need to simplify your life, and focus on the one or two things that are most important?  Do you need a new teammate like David Rutherford to motivate you, or a training plan from Mountain Athlete to focus you?  Do you need to climb a mountain?  Once you figure out the first two things, you can, in fact only you can, build your own mission plan for getting to the next level. 

Beyond normal limits requires aggressive action and specific skill applied towards bold objectives. 

Now get after it!

About the author- Brad

A dynamic leader known for operational focus and delivering results.  Highly adaptable and equally comfortable leading epic outdoor adventures, corporate teams or operating in critical environments.  An expert at Beyond Normal Limits performance.  Brad founded AOG in 2009 to offer high impact adventure and tactical training to motivated teams and organizations.  As a veteran, he lives the warrior ethos as a way of life and embodies an unconventional mindset and adaptability in all pursuits. An accomplished adventurer, tactical instructor, corporate leader and international traveler, he has trained and prepared hundreds of students to work in high threat environments, operated extensively around the world and created custom leadership events for elite  teams.

About AOG-

Adventure Operations Group (AOG) is veteran owned and dedicated to the pursuits of "Beyond Normal Limits" adventure.  AOG leads epic missions, high impact training programs and creates inspiring content to share our way of life with people everywhere who want to reach a new level.  Our brand is Beyond Normal Limits. Whether we are riding into a new adventure, training in the mountains, in the water or on the range, AOG's missions are unique and emphasize focus, being bold, pushing hard and a beyond normal limits mindset. Thanks for joining us on this journey.  Follow AOG for future missions.

www.adventureoperationsgroup.com

The Mental Performance Pipeline

The Mental Performance Pipeline- Brad Christian

 

It’s difficult to extract any one component or principle of Special Operations teams and apply it to success in the corporate environment.  Throughout the entire process of identifying, assessing, selecting, training and managing Special Operations personnel there is an immense amount of logic, legacy, analysis, overhead and investment in the pipeline to ensure that the product that is produced is, to put it simply, extremely capable. 

What is useful however is to analyze how individual SOF operators and teams approach professional goals and objectives.  From this analysis we can identify some mental tools that anyone can use to navigate challenges and obstacles commonly found in any corporate environment and in most organizations. 

First, here a few assumptions and personal observations from which I draw conclusions and create associated principles that are applicable in non SOF, corporate or other civilian environments. 

1)      Regardless of the specific SOF unit, (US Army Special Forces, Rangers, US Navy SEALS, Marine Special Operations, Special Mission Units and Others) there exists a highly developed program that assesses, trains and produces individuals capable of carrying out that unit’s mission in most any environment.  Additionally, the individuals that comprise these teams, on any given day, are significantly more prepared to adapt to unexpected challenges than most.  Finally, these individuals are among the most innovative and capable problem solvers, thinkers and “doers” found anywhere.

 

2)      Individuals and teams in the SOF world have a level of “trust among peers” that is unique, highly valued and extremely durable.  The trust I reference here results from the knowledge that your teammates at every level have been through a significant testing process, and they have passed.  They have proven that they possess “all conditions dependability”, or very close to it, and have demonstrated an above average ability to communicate, think, move, drive, shoot, fight, lead, follow, organize, you get the idea.  No matter what it is, they are pretty good at it.  They train hard, take risks, laugh at challenges and stay focused on the right objectives, most of the time.  They can be counted on to do “whatever it takes” to accomplish their mission.  They will give “100% and then some”; endure cold, heat, thirst, hunger, physical pain, uncertainty and threat of death or great bodily harm to achieve their objectives.  They all believe in their chosen profession, and take pride in knowing that their contributions often go unseen and nearly always misunderstood. 

3)      Most civilian companies that I have worked for, (and there have been a few), and most that my close friends have worked for, fail miserably where “assessing and training” their employees are concerned.  The phrase “thrown to the wolves” is the norm in most corporations.  This is true for entry level jobs, mid-level management and executive positions. 

 

4)      Civilian corporations want #2, but have no idea how to get it.

On any given day, someone who is a part of a team that I described in #1 possesses superior mental tools.  They are highly aware of themselves, their surroundings and their team.  They are mentally strong.  They have unbelievable focus and finally, their perspective is highly developed.  These traits are sometimes also found in other areas, specifically teams of elite outdoor guides (ex: Exum Mountain Guides) and other extreme athletes often possess very similar mental capabilities.

 These four components (awareness, strength, focus and perspective) make up what I refer to as the “mental performance pipeline” and with practice and training are available to anyone, anywhere at any time. 

1)      Awareness- SOF operators possess highly advanced personal and situational awareness.  Your awareness is tested in selection, an environment where you are constantly observed by instructors who take their jobs very seriously.  A simple mistake or oversight by a hopeful Green Beret or SEAL can result in a “no go” during any portion of the training pipeline.  After selection, new graduates enter the supercharged environment where elite teams train and prepare for daring and dangerous operations.  Training for these types of missions is in itself dangerous.  Shooting in close proximity to your friends, jumping out of planes, swimming at night with heavy gear, protecting VIP’s, driving big off road trucks through the mountains in total darkness are all dangerous activities that result in unfortunate accidents and even deaths each year.  You learn early and quickly to pay attention in training and your situational awareness is honed to a sharp edge.  Finally, living and working in high threat areas and executing combat operations puts you and your team in the sights of highly motivated and creative enemies.  On any given day, lack of awareness by a single individual can result in catastrophic failure for the entire team. 

 

a.       How can you develop this type of awareness?  The answer is by conducting your own personal assessment and training program. There are many great tools in the civilian world to assess your individual personality type and identify your mental strengths and weaknesses.  It’s critical to keep an open and honest approach when assessing your personality type.  Think about who you really are, not who you would like to be.  This is “Phase I”.  You need a solid foundation of awareness, and it starts with an accurate self- assessment.  During a senior year Management course at Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business, we devoted nearly an entire semester to studying and analyzing assessment and personality profiles tests.  I was personally able to try out many different types of personality and mental assessments tests.  There is something to learn from most of the reputable products on the market.  A classic product is the Meyers Briggs type indicator that assigns a letter code (explained by a detailed matrix) to each individual.  Many are available online and are quick and easy.  What does the SOF selection process look for?  Integrity, selflessness, team work and above average powers of deduction, to name a few. 

 

2)      Strength- the SOF world is filled with challenges at every turn.  Individual, team and organizational challenges exist, are often daunting and always require a positive mental attitude to ensure a successful outcome.  In this world, there are no points for second place and the phrase “pays to be a winner” is taught from the beginning.  The most important type of strength is the mental strength that mature SOF operators possess.  Overcoming challenges develops mental strength.  Long rucks, early mornings, cold, heat, night jumps and repeated deployments cause a forging of the mind and a certain type of mental toughness to occur that becomes an individual warrior’s greatest weapon.

a.       How do you develop this type of strength?  You have to challenge yourself with tough goals.  Training never ends.  Face your fears and train to improve your weaknesses.  Are you afraid of heights?  Go skydiving.  Lack confidence?  Run half a dozen obstacle course races and make yourself speak in public.  Are you physically out of shape?  Find a good local cross fit box and a community of supportive peers or better yet, check out Mountain Athlete.  Take an advanced shooting course at ACADEMI or, after you have done all of those, and think you are ready, sign up for an AOG Teton Operator Course.  The mental forging that occurs by overcoming challenges is powerful. You will be better equipped to deal with everyday problems and stressors.  Training never ends.  Whatever you choose, do a lot of it.  Repetition is key.  Change up your training, diversity is important.  Keeping setting bigger goals for yourself.  You peers will notice the difference and will see you as a leader, even though they won’t be able to exactly understand what is different about you.  Find your arena.  No excuses.

 

3)      Focus- Awareness and Focus often increase simultaneously.  Focus often means the difference between success and failure.  I have come to understand and teach the optimal approach to understanding focus by thinking of three different, overlapping and often competing missions that must be kept in balance.  These are your individual, team and organizational mission.  First is your individual mission.  What are your personal goals?  In combat, they are pretty straightforward.  Keep yourself and your teammates safe.  Second is your team’s mission?  What are your small unit objectives?  Again, in combat these are usually pretty clear, communicated down from a higher chain of command and normally achievable based on precedence, training and expected outcomes.  Third is your organization’s mission.  Organizational missions are strategic in nature, sometimes more difficult to understand (best case) or completely misunderstood (often) by the individuals and teams comprising the organization.  The best approach is to understand where the territorial boundaries are for each “mission circle”, when you are crossing the boundaries and especially, which circle is the most critical one to address at any time.  It’s rare that all three are in sync, but military organizations and objectives most often come closer to achieving balance between the three than most civilian organizations. 

 

a.       Accept the reality that in the civilian world, these three mission circles will usually be out of sync, but hopefully not all three at the same time.  Though your job will not be fun or always uplifting, keep in mind that your job is fulfilling an individual objective for your personal mission.  Whether that is providing for yourself or your family, acting as a launching pad for another opportunity or challenging you to grow as a leader, your individual mission is important in the work you do.  Your team’s mission circle, the second type, will have many ups and downs and will be among the most unstable of the three, in the civilian world.  Poor communication, lack of peer trust, high turnover, insufficient training all contribute to sometimes negative small team mission circles in many corporate environments.  (All the more important to have certainty in your personal mission circle).  In the modern economic environment most companies are dealing with more uncertainty than ever before.  Don’t expect that your organization will always be able to communicate the master mission statement, or describe the path to success for your company to accomplish its mission.   Accept it.  Strive to lead by example and develop your version of a roadmap to organizational success.  If your chain of command fails to give you the proper training, guidance or support, then prove you are capable of succeeding in any environment, use “SOF Focus” to lead yourself and your team through the chaos.  You can always find one thing to do, one task, one objective that your boss, or your boss’s boss will approve of.  There are no excuses. You must find or create a way to help your organization achieve its mission.  Will you always, or ever, be recognized?  No.  Will your peers, family or friends understand how your sacrifices or creativity contributed?  Hardly ever?  But drive on.  You know the reasons why.

 

4)      Perspective- More than anything else, keeping perspective will help you stay emotionally balanced and healthy.  Your awareness means that you are thinking ahead and setting yourself up for success.  Your strength means that you will endure the hard times with greater resiliency than your peers.  You’ll be seen as a leader, and relied on during periods of chaos or uncertainty.  Your focus will ensure that you achieve the right goals, keeping the three mission circles in balance, and courageously forging a path ahead when others are wandering aimlessly. 

 

Brad Christian is the founder of Adventure Operations Group, a company dedicated to improving individual and team performance.  Brad and the entire AOG team draw upon diverse backgrounds and benefit from a balance of critical operational and corporate leadership experience.  The AOG team creates custom individual courses, specialized team assessment programs and epic guided experiences designed to develop a “Beyond Normal Limits” mindset.    Contact AOG today for a confidential consultation or visit our website to learn more about our custom corporate consulting services.

www.adventureoperationsgroup.com

 

 

 

 

 

Small groups, heavy loads

Character is forged and awesome things happen to those that volunteer for hard missions.  Moving thru rough country day after day with a heavy load, a few friends and the remnants of a plan is a “great day”.  When your team is en route to a rally point that will require you to rise above the pain, hunger, confusion and fear that you all feel, to complete a difficult job is simply the best.  Knowing that you have miles left to go, and a job to do when you get there, and then miles left to get out, is an awesome feeling.  Suffering like this is a privilege and one that you have fought for.  It’s joins you with a proud legacy of those that went Beyond Normal Limits long before your time. 

It’s commando to move fast on foot day after day with a ruck so heavy you can barely put it on by yourself, or by truck, boat or horse and know that you still own the night, and can pass right through someone else’s AO.  It’s you and your team.  Most sane people stopped long ago, but you’re still out there- struggling along rough trails, fighting your way through a jungle, climbing to great heights on remote mountains, you push on with a team.  You put the pain out of your mind.  You thrive in the chaos and know that it’s your advantage.  You maintain 100% accountability and security all the time.

The objective is far in front of you, way beyond.  You catch an encouraging look from a teammate.  It’s subtle.  A barely perceptible nod and a quick flash of a smile that says, “Keep pushing brother, I’ll see you on the other side”.  So, you do.  You are in it all the way to the finish, no matter what. You left normal a long time ago.   When you get there, you know it was worth it. You know that no one else will understand.  “Why did you do it”?  You don’t even bother to answer. 

Corporate survival- part 1

A good friend of mine is a former SOF Operator turned corporate warrior.  We were recently chatting about his career and his company and his strategy for surviving an especially challenging corporate environment. 

I am always interested in how former highly trained, combat proven, energetic SOF warriors make the transition into corporate life, and how they in turn handle the challenges and uncertainties that so many companies are currently dealing with.  I'm equally amazed at how effectively the SOF mindset can de-construct a problem (mission), create a clear path to success (plan) and ensure with 100% certainty that they achieve the objective (execute).

He shared with me the story of his company, a struggling, mid-sized logistics firm based in a major west coast city.  The company's recent history had been an unfortunate one of multiple management shakeups, a few minor scandals, declining stock value, high employee turnover, and a recent merger that now placed the company within a much larger structure of a portfolio management group that was focused on one thing, growth. The company faced an uncertain market place, shifting economic realities and competition from smaller aggressive companies as well as larger competitors. The firm had been unable to gain new clients, and was in danger of losing more market share if they couldn't improve performance.  My friend, no stranger to hard challenges, had recently joined the company, excited by the opportunity to have an impact by helping the organization grow it's current business and expand into new AO's (markets or vertical channels).  As a junior executive he had inherited a business unit that was vital to the overall organization and was responsible for leading a team that had a long history of success, but was also struggling to maintain their performance metrics while achieving aggressive new goals.  (sound familiar?)  Many business leaders I speak with share the same story.

After a year at the company, he called me to give me a short SITREP of the situation, and to discuss some options for how to move forward. 

The company was struggling, he said, with everything, but especially the simple things.  It was plagued with sluggishness, and there was angst, dysfunction and even anger within every level of the organization over confusion related to marketing and social media, sales, core capabilities and strategy.   He observed morale, cohesion and focus at the company to be dangerously low.  The situation was exacerbated, he said, by misplaced and inexperienced mid-level and senior leadership who lacked understanding of the company's potential, or the ability to communicate the company's value to potential clients. 

I laughed, "You just described half of the organizations in existence didn't you"?  He assured me it was no laughing matter, and we continued on with the de-brief.  His understanding of the situation (warrior's situational awareness) was keen and expected from someone who had survived multiple combat deployments and high risk missions but was also educated with business experience.  Though far from the only former veteran at the company, he was perhaps one of the few from the SOF world, and by his own assessment was one of a very small group of individuals who "got it" at the company.  That mindset is obviously consistent with Type A's who have a history of high achievement and while his frustration was evident, he was also aware that to keep his wits about him, and his objectivity he needed to monitor his frustration level and stay focused on forward progress.

We summed up the overall issues over many cups of coffee, and extracted the core challenges as he saw them:

1) The company could not define it's value or mission to it's employees, clients or shareholders any longer- Organizations have to be able to clearly communicate their mission to the world.  Employees and clients both have to understand what the company's purpose and value are, so that they can, in their respective ways make the correct decisions and achieve the desired results.  The value message is directly linked to cohesion and growth.  Employees at every level have to understand the strategic mission, team mission and their individual mission or the company will be mired in the mud.

2)  The company would not advance or grow until there was functional cohesion and unity in thought over the simple things. 

I told him I thought the company sounded schizophrenic.  He agreed.  In true SOF fashion, he was determined and focused on finding solutions and creating impact to reverse trend.  In short, he was focused on winning. 

I left amazed at his determination, dedication and his well thought out strategy to start with his team, master the basics, lead by example, think three steps ahead, know his environment and create multiple options.  He had SOF focus.  He was not going to quit.  He was up against perhaps his greatest challenge, the most difficult mission, deep behind enemy lines, and had a smile on his face as if to say, "Just another day in the office". 

I wondered if his company had any idea how lucky they were to have him.  I wonder how many others are out there? 

In Corporate survival Part 2- we will look at three practical steps you can take to ensure your success and survival as a leader if you find yourself in a similar circumstance.

B-rad

ADVENTURE OPERATIONS GROUP

 

"BEYOND NORMAL LIMITS"