Are all "Elite Companies" really "Elite Units"?

A lot of the discussions in the organizational world are about building winning teams, "team of athletes". Jim Collins has been writing about this in "Good to Great" and focused on leadership. Patty McCord, Netflix' long term Chief People Officer is promoting another approach. In "Powerful" she advocates practicing radical honesty in the workplace, saying good-bye to employees who don’t fit the company’s emerging needs, and motivating with harsh yet, challenging work. Bridgewater Associates is yet another example of a radical aggressive and harsh feedback culture.

I want to suggest thinking about a similar, yet different type of organisations:

Elite units like the Israeli Shayetet 13 (the SEAL unit),or Sayeret Matkal are all volunteers and develop a winning team performance by focusing on two critical aspects:

Camaraderie - Elite units demonstrate the highest level of teamwork. We all share the same fate if things go wrong, and no person will be left alone when in dire. All team members will have the same destiny and whether in failure or on success, it's always "us" and never "me". Once you finish your long and hard training, you are an un-separable part of the team. For Life!

Personal Challenge- is the essence of being part of these units. People join these groups, because of the difficulties and not in spite of them. A new book "Alive at work" describes how disengagement isn't a motivational problem; it's a biological one. Humans aren't built for routine and repetition. There's a part of our brains, which scientists have coined "the seeking system," that rewards us for taking part in challenging activities.

To build an elite unit, we should focus on creating a fantastic team spirit like the one created on board the Clipper Round The World boat during their 2009-2010 race, while demanding the highest performance from each individual.

Combining the two is hard as people get things wrong by thinking that being a team player means being a "nice guy" while asking for higher standards and raising the bar is being a "bad guy."

Great leaders are both demanding and compassionate. They Raise the bar, demand better results, strive for excellence and never get complacent and always care for their people.

And the most important thing- they focus on building the strongest team!