Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win Part II - The Laws of Combat
Chapter 5: Cover and Move
Lief describes the challenging operations that the American soldiers had to overcome in the impossibly complex urban environment of Ramadi. In particular, he recalls a certain operation in which the military was organizing a search operation through a densely packed section of the city, which would be covered by two teams of Seals Snipers. The two teams were separated from one another by several hundred yards, and Lief’s team was to be stationed further away from the safety of the camp walls. Lief and his team arrived at their preselected building only to find major tactical challenges that were associated with its structure. However, Lief and his team were able to cover the operation with just as much efficacy as the other Sniper team. After the operation, Lief was faced with a serious dilemma, since he could not follow the standard operating procedure.
Generally, Lief and his team would stay put at their location until nightfall, but they had revealed their position during the operation. The building they had access to could not survive the firepower that the enemy was certainly going to bring to them. They could not consider calling for armored vehicles for extraction due to the enormous threat of IEDs (improvised explosive devices). Ultimately Lief decided to extract the company in broad daylight, which would certainly cause them to be seen, but it wouldn’t be enough time for the enemy to trap them. Lief’s team hustled out, but they were soon seen, and the company used the cover-and-move tactic to check the fire of the enemy. Lief’s team successfully executed the Central Peel maneuver to reach the safety of the army fortifications. However, Lief had a moment of complete deflation as his chief criticized him for not communicating with the other sniper team to cover their extraction. He realized then that he had been so concerned with the dilemma of his team that he had failed to fully realize the principle of cover and move, as he hadn’t made use of his Teams.
Principle
The authors describe the Principe of cover and move as the most central tenet for success. Cover and move mean teamwork, and it includes cooperation between groups within a larger collective that is trying to achieve an aim. Departments within organizations can lose track of the fact that they are working with the other departments and not competing against them. Leaders have to ensure that all team members feel valued and connected to the goal of the organization. Teamwork is an integral part of attaining victory.
Application to Business
The authors came across a group of managers in a corporation that was frustrated with a subsidiary company that they were forced to work with because it was owned by the same parent corporation as their firm. One of the managers kept complaining about how their shoddy work forced them to have issues with their production schedule. Jocko and Lief helped the manager realize that the enemy did not lie inside the leadership structure, since all the departments in that structure were trying to achieve the same goal. The enemy, in this case, lay in all the companies that competed with their organization, and so the authors encouraged the managers to interact with the subsidiary company as they would if they were a team. Soon, the managers discovered that the subsidiary company’s work was problematic because they had fewer resources to work with, and they were eventually able to work together to fix both of their issues. This was possible because they were able to successfully apply the principle of cover and move.
Chapter 6: Simple
Jocko relays information about the hostile conditions of Ramadi, where the US army built battle outposts to claim land from the enemy. The army then sent out regular patrols to police the population, and ensure the enemy doesn’t exercise its power within that area. The Seals worked with different battalions of the army and marine corp, all of whom had their demarcated battlefields. Jocko describes the arrival of a young Army Officer from the military transition team who was responsible for training Iraqi soldiers for patrolling. Jocko meets with the officer and hears his plan for the patrol, which sounds extremely complex since it involves crossing multiple battlefields through cramped and unsecured roads. Jocko tries to explain the difficult situation of Ramadi and the fact that going through unsecured roads could expose the team to being stuck without the support of armored vehicles, but the officer is convinced about the capabilities of his soldiers.
Jocko manages to convince the officer to simply the route so that the patrol remains within the battlefield of their camp. Jocko speaks with the SEAL operator who would be leading the SEAL element that would accompany the patrol and warns him that they would likely be engaged very shortly into their patrol. Jocko is correct in his assumption, he begins to hear the noise of a large gunfight fifteen minutes after the patrol’s departure. He contacts the team and hears the SEAL operator’s request for extraction, and Jocko deploys a team of armored vehicles. The vehicles extract the wounded and provide cover for the patrol as it retreats. Jocko learns that two Iraqi soldiers had been heavily wounded one of them had died, but the other one had survived because of the valiant efforts of the Seals who had risked their own lives to rescue him.
Principle
Combat is an extremely layered subject which endows it with significant complexity. Winning teams understand that plans need to be simple, and clear so that all the participants in the mission can understand their roles and the strategic tilt of the mission. This is equally true for business, and the authors argue that is the leader’s responsibility to ensure that all the team members have a fundamental understanding of their role and to ensure that team members are willing to seek clarification when such an understanding is missing.
Application to Business
Jocko came across a manufacturing plant whose assembly technicians could not understand how they were being compensated. The plant had put in place a new incentives program that the technicians just could not wrap their heads around, and Jocko decided to bring this to the attention of the higher authorities. He spoke to the plant manager and the chief engineer, the two people who had been responsible for drafting the new incentive program, and they assured him that the program was well thought out. They tried to lay out the plan for him, but it involved so many variables that were modified through very nuanced filters that Jocko could not understand the plan. He tried to tell them that it was too complex, but they argued that the incentive program needed to reward appropriate behavior for it to be effective. Jocko agreed with them, but he countered their point with the basic fact that their employees needed to understand the connection between action and consequence for the incentive program to work.
He told them about the basic rule that the Seals taught all their new officers when they were being taught how to plan their operations. They were told to keep their plans simple since the enemy also got a vote on their plans. They understood that even the best of plans could go awry in the chaotic situation of battle, and so simple objectives allowed soldiers to act with a certain degree of independence in the face of unthought-of challenges. He convinced the plant manager and chief engineer to come up with a simpler plan that only took into account 2-3 variables at most. He watched the productivity increase with the new simpler plan, where there had been no effect with the more complex plan before.
Chapter 7: Prioritise and Execute
Lief recalls a particularly dangerous operation that he had undertaken with his platoon in one of the most dangerous parts of Ramadi. They had occupied a deducible building deep into the enemy’s territory intending to kill as many fighters of the enemy as possible to significantly affect their ability to mount offensives against the US armed forces. They were heavily engaged in a heavy firefight, but after the battle, they were unable to secure an exit due to the fear of an IED that may have been planted at the entrance of the only exit. The Seals decided to create another exit from the building onto a neighboring rooftop by breaking down one of the walls on the second floor using sledgehammers, while the demotions team set up a charge on the suspicious package that was thought to be an IED so that they could trigger it and prevent anyone from being hurt by the bomb. The wall was breached in a moment of minutes, and the platoon began to clear out of the building, but before they could get a head count one of the Seals fell off the roof onto the street.
The fallen SEAL was nonresponsive, and the only means to reach the street was through a locked gate, while the charge had already been set, and they were in the middle of the most hostile region of the battlefield. Lief was nearly overcome by the complexity of the situation, but his training kicked in and he began to deal with the situation one aspect at a time. He set up a security perimeter first, had the team breach the door to the street, secure the fallen SEAL, conducts a headcount for the Seals, and blow the charge after the platoon had filed out of the dangerous area.
Principle
The Navy seals understand that leaders will often encounter situations that are highly compounded with complexity, and they will be required to find decisive solutions on the fly. In this instance, they verbalize the principle of prioritizing and executing through the instruction, “Relax, look around, make a call.” These high-pressure situations are found in all aspects of life, and not just combat, and the best way to use the principle is through planning for contingencies. Leaders also need to ensure that the team has a clear understanding of their objectives, as well as the order of priority for them. Team members need to be informed when such priorities shift so that they can always remain in sync with the leader, and act according to the leader’s desires in a situation where they are required to decide on their own.
Application to Business
Jocko was brought on to consult with the CEO of a pharmaceutical company that had recently begun to lose money. The CEO and Jocko had a lengthy discussion during which the CEO highlighted the numerous initiatives that he had planned and already begun to execute through his team. Jocko likened the CEO’s situation to one that the military had christened as “Decisively engaged.” This means that the CEO was engaged in a highly complex battle that prevented him from extricating himself, and robbed him of his resources. He asked the CEO about which of the initiatives he considered to be the most important of all of those that they had spoken about, and he was told that the initiative which dealt with the salespeople was of the highest priority since they needed to take the company’s profit into the green as soon as possible. However, Jocko also discovered that the people working under the CEO were most likely unaware that the initiative about the salespersons was of the highest priority.
He explained the concept of prioritizing and executing to the CEO and encouraged him to consider prioritizing his efforts towards one goal before switching to the next. The CEO was reluctant to take away any resources from the other initiatives, but he agreed to put them on the back-burner until the initiative with the salespersons had been fully resolved. Jocko observed from a distance as the information about the priority of objectives was communicated throughout the organization, and all the teams reoriented to bring the company out of the red over the next few months.
Chapter 8: Decentralised Command
Jocko talks about the principle of decentralized command, a necessity that military leaders have recognized since time immemorial. All battle commanders are aware that it is beyond any human being to be completely aware of all the things that are occurring on a battlefield, and that leadership needs to be meted out all along the chain of command. The Seals understand this concept and ensure that all of their operators are comfortable making their calls during an operation that aligns with the larger objective of the mission. Jocko had ensured that members of his unit were well versed in the concept of decentralized command, which was simplified because of the highly efficient command structure that the Seals used to operate. Jocko watched his team thrive on the highly complex battlefield of Ramadi, because of how well all the team members understood their roles and took accountability for fulfilling their objectives. He remarks that they often came to tell him about how they were dealing with a particular problem rather than coming to him with the question of how they ought to deal with it. This aspect of their operation allowed him to focus on the bigger picture, while he left his operators to conduct their business with independence.
Jocko recalls a scenario in which the decentralized command allowed him to prevent disaster. During one of the largest operations in Ramadi, Jocko’s sniper team was required to select a new outwatch position as the preselected building presented some problems. The team communicated the move to Jocko and updated him with their current information, and moments later one of the armored vehicles reported the sight of an enemy group on a rooftop. The reporting captain reported the number of the building since there were no other means to mark buildings on the map other than assigning them numbers. However, Jocko felt uncertain about something, and he asked his team to confirm their location, which was different from the one that the captain had sighted. Jocko was unconvinced and asked the captain to count the buildings just to be double sure, and prevented the eager man from engaging. The captain’s dropped voice reported that he had miscounted on the first attempt and that he had his guns trained on fellow soldiers and not the enemy. Jocko believes that he was able to spot this error because his operators were well versed in the principle of decentralized command.
Principle
Human beings cannot keep track of hundreds of individuals, and instead, they work most efficiently when they are only required to keep track of 6 - 7 people. This is the reason why most command structures build teams within teams so that no leader is required to keep track of more than a handful of people. Jocko clarifies that decentralized command does not mean that junior leaders run their operations, but it means that they have an understanding of what decisions they can make on their own, and which ones they cannot. They must be aware of their limitations, and their leader should ensure that the team members are updated with information whenever it changes, a factor called situational awareness which is an essential requirement for any junior leaders to make their own decisions. The Seals teach officers how to remain appropriately engaged with their team through a complex training exercise that is conducted in a kill house. The officers learn that they must place themselves in a position where they have a view of the whole operation that allows them to move to the place where their attention is needed most.
Application to Business
Jocko explains the concept of Decentralised command to a corporation’s president who preferred to keep his organization chart a secret since he felt that it was sensitive information because he didn’t want someone finding out that they were reporting to someone on the same level. Jocko immediately noticed that the organization chart was very disorganized with some branch managers leading teams of 20+ men while others were managing less than four. He informed the president about the concept of “fire teams,” a historic concept in marital operations that postulated the best size of a team to be between four and six. The president wondered how Seals extended control over larger bodies of soldiers, and Jocko told him that the span of control that a leader had depended mostly on the trust that he had established with his group of sleeted leaders. No one could manage more than four to six people efficiently, let alone do so in the chaotic environment of a battlefield.
The president wondered how they could prevent chaos since allowing so many people to make their own decisions could be disastrous, but Jocko assured him that if the team members were given simple instructions with a clear understanding of the tactical and strategic situation, there would be no chaos. The most essential aspect of decentralized command was trust in both directions, from leader to subordinate, and from subordinate to the leader, as allowing someone the independence to act with their judgment could also be frightening.
