Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and GOLAJV. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fellavlito.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode four fifty two. In the military, building an
Speaker 2: elite team is straightforward. Everyone goes through boot camp, they
Speaker 2: eat together, sleep in the same barracks, trained together, sweat together,
Speaker 2: and learn side by side. They don't get to leave
Speaker 2: when they're tired or when the day is done. They
Speaker 2: don't get to tap out when it gets hard. They're
Speaker 2: locked in and the environment itself pushes them towards becoming elite.
Speaker 2: But in the private sector, you don't get that luxury.
Speaker 2: Your employees clock out at five o'clock. They go home
Speaker 2: to their families, their personal lives and their distractions. They
Speaker 2: can quit if they want to. They aren't bound by
Speaker 2: the same code of conduct or uniform standards that military
Speaker 2: teams are, and you can't control what they do once
Speaker 2: they walk out the door. So the question is, how
Speaker 2: do you build that same elite team mindset in business
Speaker 2: when you don't have boot camp and barracks to lean on.
Speaker 2: And here's the answer. You don't copy the environment, you
Speaker 2: copy the principles. Elite military teams are built on four pillars,
Speaker 2: and you can bring every one of them into your
Speaker 2: workplace starting today. First, shared hardship and the military hardship
Speaker 2: is built in in business, you have to create it.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean making your employees miserable. It means setting big,
Speaker 2: challenging goals that require everyone to push themselves. Launching a
Speaker 2: new product, tackling a major client, pulling off a company
Speaker 2: wide initiative. Those moments become your shared hardship. When people
Speaker 2: grind through a tough challenge together, they come out stronger,
Speaker 2: more connected, and more elite. Second is absolute clarity. Military
Speaker 2: teams know their mission. There's no guessing. They know why
Speaker 2: they're there, what the objective is, and what success looks like.
Speaker 2: Most businesses fail here. Employees don't understand the why behind
Speaker 2: what they're doing. If you want an elite team, you
Speaker 2: have to be crystal clear about the mission. What are
Speaker 2: we chasing, Why does it matter? How does each person contribute?
Speaker 2: Because without clarity, you'll never have cohesionord is accountability in
Speaker 2: the military. If you don't pull your weight, someone else suffers.
Speaker 2: That mindset builds an elite standard. In the private sector,
Speaker 2: you need to create systems of accountability where employees hold
Speaker 2: themselves and each other responsible. It can be as simple
Speaker 2: as daily huddles, peer reviews, or check ins that force
Speaker 2: everyone to show their work. Accountability isn't about punishment, It's
Speaker 2: about trust. And fourth is culture. In the military, the
Speaker 2: culture is non negotiable. You wear the uniform, you follow
Speaker 2: the code, and you live by the values. In business,
Speaker 2: culture is often just a poster on the wall. If
Speaker 2: you want an elite team, you have to live your culture,
Speaker 2: breathe it, and enforce it. That means leaders model the values,
Speaker 2: peers per ten heck, the values and violations of the
Speaker 2: values are addressed immediately. Culture is the glue that binds
Speaker 2: the team. Now, let me be clear, your business is
Speaker 2: never going to feel like boot camp, and it shouldn't,
Speaker 2: but you can absolutely take the best parts of how
Speaker 2: elite teams are built in the military and apply them
Speaker 2: to your workforce. Set tough challenges so your people wearing
Speaker 2: victories together, communicate the mission so everyone knows why they're here.
Speaker 2: Build systems of accountability so no one can hide in
Speaker 2: the shadows, and live your culture every single day, so
Speaker 2: that belonging to the team actually means something. So that's
Speaker 2: how you create an elite mindset in a private sector team,
Speaker 2: not by controlling their lives outside of work or what
Speaker 2: they eat and how they sleep, but by making the
Speaker 2: time they end with you matter at the highest possible
Speaker 2: level to become a better version of themselves than they
Speaker 2: were the day before. So if you're the CEO or
Speaker 2: manager and you keep saying to yourself, I want an
Speaker 2: elite team like the Blue Angels or the Thunderbirds, you
Speaker 2: have to remember this elite isn't about where you are,
Speaker 2: It's about who you decide to be when you walk
Speaker 2: through the door. This has been the seven minute Leadership
Speaker 2: podcast and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more, Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellofalito dot com.