The Reaper
03-29-2015, 08:56
Good read.
TR
A Special Forces Officer Teaches You 5 Secrets To Overcoming Adversity
http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2015/03/overcoming-adversity/?utm_content=buffer23cc3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Life can be really difficult sometimes. We all deal with it. But how do top performers overcome challenges? And what can we learn from them? I figured I'd call an expert.
Who knows about overcoming adversity? Special Forces.
So I called Mike Kenny. Mike's a Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel with 22 years of service under his belt. For most of his career he was an 18 Alpha (Special Forces Officer) and is currently the Special Operations Forces liaison to the School of Advanced Military Studies.
Most of what you may think you know about Special Forces is wrong. You might be imagining summer movies and gun battles. But a lot of what they deal with isn't all that much different from some of the challenges you face.
SEALs and Rangers specialize in "direct action" and "special reconnaissance." Meanwhile, Special Forces is focused on "foreign internal defense" and "unconventional warfare." That means preventing or assisting an insurgency.
So, plain and simple, SF guys need a lot of people skills.
They're good behind the gun, no doubt, but they spend a lot of their time working with people - and usually people who don't speak their language and don't share a common culture. Which means they face a lot of problems that you can't just shoot or blow up.
Here's what you can learn from Special Forces training about overcoming adversity.
1) Prepare, Prepare, Prepare
We often wait until the hurricane hits us to think about how we're going to cope with it. Special Forces, on the other hand, is very big on preparing.
Via Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces:
The Special Forces are not a rapid deployment force; the secret of their success is intensive preparation. The men studied the area they were assigned as thoroughly as any Ph.D. student. They sucked up every available open-source and classified assessment of the demographics, tribal clans, local politics, religious leaders and schisms, history, terrain, infrastructure, road maps, power grids, water supplies, crops, and local economy. They planned, debated, and rehearsed both combat and follow-on operations.
Many of the benefits that come from preparation are obvious. Nobody thinks preparing is bad. But Mike pointed out something that isn't so readily apparent.
Not only does preparation get all your ducks in a row but prep changes your attitude. You're more confident and this creates an upward spiral that improves performance. Here's Mike:
Something that people underestimate is that preparedness is not only that you're hardening and conditioning your body, but there's a powerful mental aspect. Physically, you know you're prepared. You and your mind are going, "I'm ready for this. This is what they said their standard was, and I know I can do that. I know I'm at this level so that whatever they throw at me I know I am adequately conditioned."
Research shows this feeling of control neutralizes stress and builds courage.
When you do blood tests on soldiers during a challenging task, what do you find? The level of stress hormones in their bodies doesn't match the difficulty of the task, it matches theirperception of the difficulty.
Via Maximum Brainpower: Challenging the Brain for Health and Wisdom:
What mattered was how closely the anticipated challenge matched the soldiers' actual capabilities. We took blood samples from the four groups to see how the experience affected each group's stress hormones... The soldiers who never knew the actual length of the march were asked at the end to estimate its length. The levels of stress hormones in their blood corresponded to the length they thought it was, not the length it actually was.
And what's the best way to prepare? Make your training as close to the real thing as possible. Here's Mike:
In Army parlance they say, "train like you fight." Don't screw around and say, "Okay, when it's for real then we'll really ramp up." No, you need to do that now. You need to train as hard and as realistic as possible, because this notion that when it's for real and the stakes are high, that's when we'll really turn it on and rise to the occasion... that's not what happens. You will not rise to the occasion. You will sink to the lowest level of your training. It's the truth.
So preparation is pretty straightforward. But Special Forces is also big on something you probably never expected to hear from a military unit...
2) Creativity Isn't Nice - It's Essential
When we think about the military we think following orders, not creativity. But that changes when you're talking about Special Forces.
A small independent unit can't always rely on a division of tanks backing them up. They'll have many problems they need to solve quickly, in the field, with little or no support. So resourcefulness is vital.
Via Chosen Soldier: The Making of a Special Forces Warrior:
The Special Forces are looking for more than someone who is tough and smart and plays well with others. They are looking for adaptability and flexibility, men who can look at a given task and come up with any number of ways to solve it. Someone with good entrepreneurial skills is a good candidate for Special Forces, since the work of the Green Berets often involves calculated risk and creative thinking. If one solution to a problem fails, they have to immediately come up with another way to accomplish the mission.
The army calls this type of creativity "disciplined initiative." It's not wild and crazy risk-taking, but it definitely looks outside the conventional for how to solve difficult problems. Here's Mike:
...in SF, and now the Army at large, you hear constantly we need agile and adaptive leaders and thinkers, critical and creative thinkers. Special Operations has always valued it, and I think out of necessity, because with smaller units you've got to be creative and adaptive, because you don't always have all the resources at your disposal. What they want is a guy that can think on his feet and think somewhat unconstrained. To me, there's always this tension between the cowboy that does crazy stuff for the sake of doing crazy stuff and those that can exercise what in Army mission command they call "disciplined initiative." That means, "We want you to exercise initiative, but the discipline lies in keeping it within mission parameters to achieve the commander's intent."
But how does creativity allow Davids like small Special Forces units to overcome Goliaths like bigger groups of enemy soldiers? The key is what's called "relative superiority."
Objective superiority is more soldiers, more guns, more planes. Relative superiority is tactical, like using surprise or timing or a well-planned ambush.
This is why creativity is so critical to SF.
Via Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice:
Relative superiority is a concept crucial to the theory of special operations.
Simply stated, relative superiority is a condition that exists when an attacking force, generally smaller, gains a decisive advantage over a larger or well-defended enemy... An inherent weakness in special forces is their lack of firepower relative to a large conventional force. Consequently when they lose relative superiority, they lose the initiative, and the stronger form of warfare generally prevails. The key to a special operations mission is to gain relative superiority early in the engagement. The longer an engagement continues, the more likely the outcome will be affected by the will of the enemy, chance, and uncertainty, the factors that comprise the frictions of war.
So SF is not just gung-ho testosterone. And that means they know how to deal with people.
(Cont.)
TR
A Special Forces Officer Teaches You 5 Secrets To Overcoming Adversity
http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2015/03/overcoming-adversity/?utm_content=buffer23cc3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Life can be really difficult sometimes. We all deal with it. But how do top performers overcome challenges? And what can we learn from them? I figured I'd call an expert.
Who knows about overcoming adversity? Special Forces.
So I called Mike Kenny. Mike's a Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel with 22 years of service under his belt. For most of his career he was an 18 Alpha (Special Forces Officer) and is currently the Special Operations Forces liaison to the School of Advanced Military Studies.
Most of what you may think you know about Special Forces is wrong. You might be imagining summer movies and gun battles. But a lot of what they deal with isn't all that much different from some of the challenges you face.
SEALs and Rangers specialize in "direct action" and "special reconnaissance." Meanwhile, Special Forces is focused on "foreign internal defense" and "unconventional warfare." That means preventing or assisting an insurgency.
So, plain and simple, SF guys need a lot of people skills.
They're good behind the gun, no doubt, but they spend a lot of their time working with people - and usually people who don't speak their language and don't share a common culture. Which means they face a lot of problems that you can't just shoot or blow up.
Here's what you can learn from Special Forces training about overcoming adversity.
1) Prepare, Prepare, Prepare
We often wait until the hurricane hits us to think about how we're going to cope with it. Special Forces, on the other hand, is very big on preparing.
Via Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces:
The Special Forces are not a rapid deployment force; the secret of their success is intensive preparation. The men studied the area they were assigned as thoroughly as any Ph.D. student. They sucked up every available open-source and classified assessment of the demographics, tribal clans, local politics, religious leaders and schisms, history, terrain, infrastructure, road maps, power grids, water supplies, crops, and local economy. They planned, debated, and rehearsed both combat and follow-on operations.
Many of the benefits that come from preparation are obvious. Nobody thinks preparing is bad. But Mike pointed out something that isn't so readily apparent.
Not only does preparation get all your ducks in a row but prep changes your attitude. You're more confident and this creates an upward spiral that improves performance. Here's Mike:
Something that people underestimate is that preparedness is not only that you're hardening and conditioning your body, but there's a powerful mental aspect. Physically, you know you're prepared. You and your mind are going, "I'm ready for this. This is what they said their standard was, and I know I can do that. I know I'm at this level so that whatever they throw at me I know I am adequately conditioned."
Research shows this feeling of control neutralizes stress and builds courage.
When you do blood tests on soldiers during a challenging task, what do you find? The level of stress hormones in their bodies doesn't match the difficulty of the task, it matches theirperception of the difficulty.
Via Maximum Brainpower: Challenging the Brain for Health and Wisdom:
What mattered was how closely the anticipated challenge matched the soldiers' actual capabilities. We took blood samples from the four groups to see how the experience affected each group's stress hormones... The soldiers who never knew the actual length of the march were asked at the end to estimate its length. The levels of stress hormones in their blood corresponded to the length they thought it was, not the length it actually was.
And what's the best way to prepare? Make your training as close to the real thing as possible. Here's Mike:
In Army parlance they say, "train like you fight." Don't screw around and say, "Okay, when it's for real then we'll really ramp up." No, you need to do that now. You need to train as hard and as realistic as possible, because this notion that when it's for real and the stakes are high, that's when we'll really turn it on and rise to the occasion... that's not what happens. You will not rise to the occasion. You will sink to the lowest level of your training. It's the truth.
So preparation is pretty straightforward. But Special Forces is also big on something you probably never expected to hear from a military unit...
2) Creativity Isn't Nice - It's Essential
When we think about the military we think following orders, not creativity. But that changes when you're talking about Special Forces.
A small independent unit can't always rely on a division of tanks backing them up. They'll have many problems they need to solve quickly, in the field, with little or no support. So resourcefulness is vital.
Via Chosen Soldier: The Making of a Special Forces Warrior:
The Special Forces are looking for more than someone who is tough and smart and plays well with others. They are looking for adaptability and flexibility, men who can look at a given task and come up with any number of ways to solve it. Someone with good entrepreneurial skills is a good candidate for Special Forces, since the work of the Green Berets often involves calculated risk and creative thinking. If one solution to a problem fails, they have to immediately come up with another way to accomplish the mission.
The army calls this type of creativity "disciplined initiative." It's not wild and crazy risk-taking, but it definitely looks outside the conventional for how to solve difficult problems. Here's Mike:
...in SF, and now the Army at large, you hear constantly we need agile and adaptive leaders and thinkers, critical and creative thinkers. Special Operations has always valued it, and I think out of necessity, because with smaller units you've got to be creative and adaptive, because you don't always have all the resources at your disposal. What they want is a guy that can think on his feet and think somewhat unconstrained. To me, there's always this tension between the cowboy that does crazy stuff for the sake of doing crazy stuff and those that can exercise what in Army mission command they call "disciplined initiative." That means, "We want you to exercise initiative, but the discipline lies in keeping it within mission parameters to achieve the commander's intent."
But how does creativity allow Davids like small Special Forces units to overcome Goliaths like bigger groups of enemy soldiers? The key is what's called "relative superiority."
Objective superiority is more soldiers, more guns, more planes. Relative superiority is tactical, like using surprise or timing or a well-planned ambush.
This is why creativity is so critical to SF.
Via Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice:
Relative superiority is a concept crucial to the theory of special operations.
Simply stated, relative superiority is a condition that exists when an attacking force, generally smaller, gains a decisive advantage over a larger or well-defended enemy... An inherent weakness in special forces is their lack of firepower relative to a large conventional force. Consequently when they lose relative superiority, they lose the initiative, and the stronger form of warfare generally prevails. The key to a special operations mission is to gain relative superiority early in the engagement. The longer an engagement continues, the more likely the outcome will be affected by the will of the enemy, chance, and uncertainty, the factors that comprise the frictions of war.
So SF is not just gung-ho testosterone. And that means they know how to deal with people.
(Cont.)