In the immediate aftermath of a large explosion in which I had unknowingly triggered a buried improvised explosive device underfoot on a hilltop in rural Afghanistan, I remember lying in the dirt trying to find the push-to-talk to key up my radio to communicate my status to the team. It didn’t seem like I was able to do anything else as I lay nearly incapacitated in the dark, even though I couldn’t find the push-to-talk because it, along with the rest of my military kit, had been dislodged in the blast. But the effort is what mattered. The attempt to make a bad or difficult situation just a little bit better is what I would like to explore.
Seek to improve your fighting position
Many years before, when I went through basic, intermediate, and platoon-level training as a member of the US Navy’s special operations forces (SEAL), I was taught a cardinal principle: always seek to improve your fighting position. Individual operators should always assess their “fighting position” and the same goes for units and unit leaders. What can you be doing right now to improve your competitive advantage—not only during a mission, but in the preparatory and planning phases as well as afterward? This concept speaks to the decisions which can be made, and the organization, delegation, and actions which can be taken in pursuit of the objective. It also speaks to mindset: recognizing that there is always something which can be done to get better, to increase your chances for success, and that you are never out of the fight—no matter how bleak the current moment may seem. There is always something which can be done to improve performance. As a leader, ask yourself: What can I do to get a little bit better today? Analyzing: What is the most important decision to make or action to take to improve the team’s position? What can you do to improve the performance of the team and increase your chances of gaining a competitive advantage or serving your customers better?
Build a process for achieving your goals
As a Paralympic athlete in cross-country skiing, I try to apply some of the lessons I learned while serving in the Navy to now training for, and competing in, international competitions. Understandably it is important to set goals, and sometimes these goals are results-based or quantitative in nature. Sometimes the goals are four years away, at the next Paralympic Winter Games for example. I have found that the strongest goals I’ve ever had—which offer the best chance of adherence—came naturally, or they at least did not seem forced by external pressure. However, I also have come to find that putting some of these long-range goals aside for the time being—no matter how powerful they may be—offers the opportunity to focus on developing a process to achieve them. Improving performance does not come from simply setting a goal of “trying harder” this year or cycle and demanding that people on the team work harder. It comes from analyzing the various factors which contribute to performance—and challenging yourself to thoroughly analyze what really does drive performance—and then setting goals within the performance categories which result from this analysis. Smaller, more achievable tasks which you know you can achieve, within the various categories of performance, will accumulate over time and multiply across categories. Doing this is referred to as creating a “process”—a process for improving performance oriented towards achieving a major, long-range goal. In a circular way, the work of implementing, adjusting, and improving the process of achieving long-range goals has become my goal.
Focus on what matters most each day
When I think about “improving my fighting position” as an athlete, I ask myself: What are the factors of performance in cross-country skiing, going beyond what easily comes to mind? What are short-term goals within each of the categories? How can I gain feedback to see how I’m doing and adjust the organization of this plan accordingly? What can I do today to improve in a few of the categories? And, by the way, there are some days in which the most important thing I can do today to improve performance is to rest, taking the day off! In a ski race, when I’m struggling against the limits of what my mind and body can do, fighting for every second against a ticking clock and against other athletes striving their hardest, I think to myself: What is the most important thing I can do right now to ski a little bit faster? Whatever this most important thing is—I focus on it. Everything else—including the pain—is secondary to what makes me go faster. And what makes me go faster is related to two concepts: effort and mechanics. I can go faster by digging deeper, and I can go faster by using better technique or equipment. When I was named to the cross-country relay team for the US in the 2022 Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing, in the third leg of a four-person team, I kept telling myself before and during the race: fight for every second on this race course; go one second faster, and then one second faster after that; give the anchor leg the best possible chance of passing the teams still in front of us (which he did).
Leaders often get caught up in day-to-day exigencies, but it is important to ask yourself: Are we acting in pursuit of the mission? Are our goals aligned with the mission, and is our performance and daily effort in line with our goals? When stress or the feeling of being out-of-control mounts, take a deep breath and think: What is the most important decision I can make, or the most important action the team can take? Then focus on the execution of this item. Or delegate so that someone else acts upon it. And then focus on the next most important decision or action.
"Are we acting in pursuit of the mission? Are our goals aligned with the mission, and is our performance and daily effort in line with our goals?"
Former Navy SEAL, Paralympic Athlete
Your mindset can make all the difference
In my opinion, mental toughness and discipline are essential components within the often long and difficult process of working towards achieving major goals. Grinding through a challenge which doesn’t fit into the bigger picture, or slogging along an incorrect path for you, seems much less relevant and meaningful than persevering and staying on track in pursuit of a vital goal. Setting goals has helped me get through some devastating setbacks, to include that significant, life-threatening combat injury in Afghanistan in 2009. Knowing that everything I was doing in the recovery phase was in pursuit of walking full-time and running again—my two biggest goals at the time—kept me motivated to adhere to the long process of improvement, which was daily physical therapy stretched over many months. The discipline and fortitude you need are much easier to muster when you know you are on the right track.
Welcome the idea of refining and adjusting your goals
The essence of leadership is to move a diverse team in pursuit of a common objective. Therefore, it is critical that leaders set not only goals for the team, but that they have the flexibility and adaptability to refine and adjust the goals as necessary. To make such adjustments, there should be mechanisms for soliciting accurate and timely feedback. Receiving feedback from coaches and other experts is important for athletes working to become better. However, recognizing that feedback isn’t always positive and therefore not always desirable to receive, I return to the question I asked earlier: What can you do right now to improve your fighting position? If improving your fighting position means fostering an atmosphere of constructive, critical feedback so that the team can reset, reorganize, and re-execute to gain a competitive advantage, then do it! If a coach gives me feedback which is meant to help me ski faster, I take it onboard—this is how you improve your fighting position.
In the military, athletics, and in the business world, you do not control or get to decide the next move the competition is going to make. Your actions, which you do control, may affect the calculations involved in the competition’s next decision. However, successful performers in these fields recognize that in every situation there are elements within your control, but also factors and forces which are outside of your control. Furthermore, there is an in-between zone where you may have some influence or ability to maneuver to eventually gain influence. Often, we are most challenged and frustrated by forces which are entirely outside of our control. Taking the time to analyze these differences can be useful. What can you control, what do you have influence over or the potential to influence, and what is entirely outside of your ability to control or influence? Focus on taking action in the realm where you have control, where you have the ability to influence, and where you can maneuver to gain influence. That is how to improve your fighting position and win a competitive advantage.
