Watching "Discipline Equals Freedom" Come To Life

Have you been surprised in the month of October? There sure is no shortage of things to be surprised about considering Halloween and our political climate!

But I was surprised this month in a very positive way.

You may recall last month when I discussed how my team has adopted the principles of Extreme Ownership from a book by Navy SEALs, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.

The weekly and quarterly meetings have continued, and this month we embarked upon our 3rd Quarter Leadership Meeting. We had 13 people in the room and were ready to go.

One of the topics for discussion was: How can we do better at demonstrating Extreme Ownership to our fellow teammates?

I started us off with a few opening remarks and then we dove right in.

To my amazement, the team was able to communicate openly and honestly in a way that I have never seen before. 

It turns out, since everyone was on the same page, we were able to express our ideas without the fear of hurting each other's feelings. Most of the issues that were brought up affected multiple teams, but each team didn't realize it until they were no longer afraid to speak up.

The communication led to a great list of things that we will get done next quarter. And the best part is -- everyone on the team will benefit from the accomplishments.

Jocko and Leif express in their book that "Discipline equals freedom." We got the chance to experience the truth of that statement first-hand this month and we look forward to seeing it come to life in other areas as well.

Marty