Monthly Archives: December 2010

Developing High Performance Culture and Training

Training is continuous and related to assignments. A high-performance spirit and raw confidence are cut from the same cloth. Confidence can be defined as the inner security that comes from knowing and knowing that you know.

The role of continuous training is to promote inner security by maintaining preparedness. With the business world changing so rapidly, the high-performance unit must be perpetually updated to remain current, responsive and effective. The training must be related to the task performed. This not only ensures cost effectiveness by being immediately applicable, it adds to the elite feeling by increasing the likelihood of unit success. Continue reading →

Training Lessons from Navy Seal Training

Individuals in the unit are constantly tested to ensure that they measure up to the elite standards of the unit. High-performance teams rarely allow team members to rest on past laurels— the quest to achieve is constant and relentless.

The player with a poor batting average is traded, despite his contributions in past seasons. Performance expected is frequently compared to performance achieve; too wide a gap on the negative side without obvious extenuating circumstances is unacceptable. The period of time a unit member is allowed to stay “in the red” and remain in the unit is short. Feedback on performance is frequent and specific. Continue reading →

NAVY Training and Military Training

Completion of individual training is followed by team training. As individual training buys one eligibility, team training becomes an investment in effectiveness. It has been repeatedly shown that most companies, organizations or teams fail more frequently because of the lack of unit interdependence when individual skills are present than the reverse.

Even in units requiring highly individual actions (e.g., a scientist in a research lab), the quantity and quality of resource sharing becomes a crucial factor in determining the overall results achieved. Continue reading →

Navy Seal Training Manual

The principles to follow were not copied from a Navy regulation manual. They were synthesized from SEAL literature, interviews with SEAL training officers and experience in combat working with Navy SEALS.

In addition, many of the techniques were tested with the training department of a major company. The department had the reputation of being a skilled but rather pedestrian unit. Continue reading →

Military Training vs. Management Training

What’s a war story doing in an article about training? Surely not another cliched message about “if it worked in the Navy, it ought to work in a bank, or textile plant, or social agency.”

There are differences between the environment found in the military and that found in other organizations. Military (particularly combat) employees tolerate conditions clearly not imposable on civilians. Can you imagine requiring an engineering recruit to crawl through a 40-yard mud pit as a condition of employment? Even the thought is preposterous. Yet, there may be useful parallels worthy of exploration. Continue reading →

HR Department and People Development Process

Personnel planning and review assures annual attention to how an organization’s people are developing and helps executives systematically broaden their pool of potential leaders. When it is well-managed, (criterion-based, reliable, fair) and considers both personal and organizational needs, personnel review and planning can also strengthen the organization’s appeal to career-conscious, high-talent recruits and employees.

This is true, however, only when top management helps develop, support and participate in a rigorous review and planning process and then follows through on career pathing and development actions. Continue reading →