It’s no secret that the Navy Seals are one of the most elite teams on the planet. Highly skilled, trained and motivated, they operate with exceptional levels of commitment and teamwork, performing missions around the world that demand excellence and pinpoint precision – like the missions to kill Bin Laden, or rescue Captain Phillips.
If you visit their training facilities in either Coronado or Virginia Beach you’re likely to notice one of their secrets to consistently churning out elite teams.
You’ll notice a stack of telephone poles.
They look like remains from a construction project or a stockpile for a utility, but for Seal Commanders they are sacred. They form the basis of a training routine called Log PT – an approach that instills teamwork, discipline, vulnerability and commitment.
Log PT is not complicated. Essentially six trainees perform a collection of maneuvers that look more like a barn raising. They lift them. Roll them. Carry them and move them from shoulder to shoulder. Do sit-ups while cradling them. Stand for long periods holding them above their heads.
There is no defined strategy for a team of trainees to follow. They must learn to work together, to build commitment and teamwork.
When done poorly, the poles buck and roll, and the team fights with each other, boiling emotions. However, when done well, it looks smooth, quiet and efficient. It has nothing to do with strength – rather it’s performed well when teamwork and harmony emerge. When a team member falters, almost invisibly another team member adjusts their efforts to keep the poles level and steady.
Log PT is the brainchild of Draper Kauffman, a WWII Veteran who got the idea for Log PT (and others that help form the core of Seal training) from being stationed with and serving with the Corps Franc, on the front lines in Germany.
Log PT was designed and first implemented in the late 1940s. And still, to this day, is used to train and prepare elite teams.
Think about that for a moment. With all the new and exciting technologies available today, a simple program based on teams working together and in harmony moving telephone poles around is the core technology used to produce elite teams and performance.
Let that sink in and the lesson on offer.
Everyday, if you’re like me, you’re being bombarded with claims of incredible breakthroughs of potential future performance with new and brilliant technologies – like AI, Big Data, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Internet of Things, just to name a few. And to be fair, I believe the potential is and will be enormous.
The lesson here is that the most elite producing teams on the planet has yet to see the need or benefit of changing their approach – an approach that literally hasn’t changed since the 1940s.
Here’s an example from one of our clients that is consistent with the lesson.
When we demonstrate the Flowcasting planning process for one of our retail clients, many people are shocked to understand how the promotional sales forecast is derived.
It’s basically built from a demand planner looking at POS sales history for that item from past promotions and then, if needed, collaborating with the Category Leader – for situations where there is limited or no history and/or the promotional offer is significantly different than past offers.
They agree on what they think they will sell for the event and the system spreads that forecast down to the participating stores based on simple rules about that items contribution to sales, store by store.
That’s it. Pure simplicity.
Yet, like Log PT, it is delivering awesome results – better than any approaches used before. Helping to deliver industry leading in-stock for promotional events – a thorn for most retailers.
Planners and Category Leaders understand they need to work together, and they do, building commitment and accountability for the promotional sales forecast.
Please don’t think that I’m shitting on new technologies like AI, IoT and any others. I’m not. I believe that there is and will be enormous potential for these technologies and that they will also largely deliver on these promises.
But, I also believe in what is simple and works.
So do my client’s customers.