Extreme Ownership has taught me that…
This morning, one of my managers requested a raise to the highest pay tier in the company.
And he requested that we promote a few other people to the manager.
He has the worst-performing team in the company by far.
A younger Dennis would have been mad— I would have said “How dare you ask for a raise when your team is wasting money like crazy.”
But extreme ownership has taught me that there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.
Because I didn’t make his team’s performance more clearly and consistently enforce our standards, he would have thought that merely punching the clock was enough for advancement.
And so his team members believed the same, too– that automatic advancement is guaranteed, even if the performance isn’t there.
If you want a goal-oriented team, focus on the results, not how much time they’ve put in or how hard they’ve worked.
Then you can gladly reward those who get the job done.