Teamwork
Mike Doyle
Founder
Mike is a full-time police officer and tactical medic. He currently works as a K9 handler, SWAT team member, and Police Trainer. Mike started Tactical Tangents as part of his fundamental purpose to save lives. His goal is to enhance the survival of police officers and concerned citizens by helping them become better, smarter, faster, and more efficient. His opinions are for informational purposes only and do not reflect those of his employer or any other government agency.
Training Champions – Maxing Performance from Baseball to Special Ops
Major League Baseball, Stanford University, 10th Special Forces, and Los Angeles County Fire are just a few of the organizations Fernando Montes has served as an exercise physiologist and sports performance coach in some capacity. He currently works with firefighters, especially wildland crews and academy recruits. Mr. Montes talks to us about the mental side of training, heat acclimatization, hydration, supplementation, and more based on four decades of experience working with a broad range of tactical and professional athletes.
Operation Eagle Claw: To You All, From Us All, For Having The Guts To Try
A watershed event in the history of US Special Operations was the 1979 hostage rescue attempt at the embassy in Tehran, Iran. Known as Operations Eagle Claw, this failed mission and the tragedy at the Desert One landing site led to the formation of US SOCOM and pushed special operations into the next generation. The best way we can honor the hostages who remained in captivity and the service members who lost their lives is to draw some lessons learned and acknowledge their sacrifice for having “The Guts To Try.”
Safety Third: Making Training Awesome, But Also Safe
The best instructors know that fun and effective training takes careful planning and a lot of effort to get the details right. If you want to get buy in from your bosses to take all your innovative ideas and put them into practice, you need to make those events as safe as possible. That doesn’t mean eliminating every hazard, but it does mean being thoughtful and deliberate about which risks you are willing to accept. Mike talks us through the risk management process and some ideas to help you identify and address those hazards so that you can take your training to the next level.
Who are the people in your group who make the difference between a “loose gaggle” and a high-performance team? Today we want to give a high-five and a handshake to the informal leaders—the unappointed low- or middle-man who owns their mistakes, never makes excuses, and humbly accepts criticism. You might be asking yourself, doesn’t that just make them a good follower? And the answer is no.
Leadership is all about influence, confidence, and cooperation. Leadership is the quality that makes elite teams better than teams that are just OK. The first thing we need to understand about cohesive groups is that being a team player doesn’t necessarily mean being the strongest jock who can carry all of the weight—that guy is not going to make it to the end-zone if the rest of us don’t enable him to get there. Teamwork is about understanding and carrying your share of the work—know your job, and do it well, because the efforts of every team member affect the final output. Teamwork means recognizing that everyone has something to bring to the table. Teamwork also means knowing your buddy’s job so you can anticipate his or her needs. And if you see your bosses as members of the team (which you should) that means deciding when to go with the flow and when to speak up and give your input. Even the new guy can affect the team’s performance by setting the standard for the group and not being someone to worry about. A good team becomes great when everyone leads, everyone takes pride and ownership in the output, and everyone is held accountable.
High-performance teams still have people in charge. The bosses are the figurehead—they are responsible for running interference, looking forward and outward, and having a vision for the future. An effective commander handles his or her share of the work by trusting and empowering the other leaders in the team to get the smaller-scale, more immediate tasks done, all the way down to the lowest ranking guy or gal in the pack who understands his role, and can be trusted with that role—whatever it may be. The person in charge has a plan and calls the shots, but good subordinate leaders know when to stay on task and when to make adjustments on their own initiative. Good bosses know to trust, encourage, and most importantly—support—those adjustments.
Human dynamics are not perfect. You are going to find that some leaders are better than others, and sometimes the people in charge are not the best pick. Politics and bureaucracy will always create interference—but if you look around, you’ll be surprised to find that effective, informal leaders always find a way to navigate those obstacles. The ones who carry their weight, don’t make excuses, and gain your confidence—those are the ones you want to watch for. Those are the ones you want to emulate. Be that guy. If you want to read more about teamwork, check out a post we did a while back here.
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