The Program Lessons From Elite Military Units for Creating and Sustaining High Performance Leaders and Teams

Discover the military’s keys to excellent leadership and team building training

The Program: Lessons From Elite Military Units for Creating and Sustaining High Performing Leaders and Teams offers a hands-on guide to the winning techniques and tactics of The Program, the acclaimed team building and leadership development company. Drawing on the actual experiences of The Program’s instructors from their personal combat stories to working with world-class athletic teams and successful corporations, the book clearly shows how The Program’s training operations can help to achieve life goals and ambitions.

The Program offers a road map that contains illustrative examples, ideas, and approaches for improving teammates and leaders at all levels within an organization of any size or type.

• Bring your organization to the next level of success
• Discover how to hold your leaders and teammates to the highest standards
• Understand how accountability increases effectiveness
• Learn to communicate effectively 

This important book explores the military’s leadership and team building concepts that can be implemented to ensure an organization creates and sustains performance that adheres to the highest standards of excellence. 

ERIC KAPITULIK served as an Officer in the United States Marine Corps. He is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Eric is the Founder and President of The Program LLC.

JAKE MACDONALD is a graduate of Tufts University and served as an Officer in the United States Marine Corps. Jake completed two combat tours in Iraq and later deployed to Afghanistan as a Scout Sniper Platoon Commander.

Introduction xi

Section I Creating a Championship Culture 1

Chapter 1 The Fundamentals of a Championship Culture 3

Chapter 2 Determining “Best” 6

Chapter 3 Defining “Best” 10

Chapter 4 Core Means Core! 13

Chapter 5 Recruiting and Hiring “Best” 15

Chapter 6 Talent Still Matters 19

Chapter 7 Determining Goals 24

Chapter 8 When You Face a Hairpin Turn in the Road 28

Chapter 9 Determining Standards 32

Chapter 10 A Commitment to Goals and Standards 36

Chapter 11 Hold “Best” Accountable 39

Section II Teammates 43

Chapter 12 A Special Operations Teammate 45

Chapter 13 Meet the Standards: Be a Thumb Teammate 47

Chapter 14 Do Your Job! Agreed, Kinda . . . 50

Chapter 15 Winning Still Matters 52

Chapter 16 Great Teammates Hold One Another Accountable 55

Chapter 17 We Have Seen the Enemy 58

Chapter 18 The Price of Not Holding Teammates Accountable 60

Chapter 19 The Benefit of Team Accountability 62

Chapter 20 Nice and Kind 65

Chapter 21 How to Be Kind 67

Chapter 22 Wash Your Hands! Developing a Culture of Accountability 70

Chapter 23 Do Not “Lead by Example” 73

Chapter 24 Consistency Builds Trust 77

Chapter 25 Friend or Teammate? 80

Section III Team Leaders 87

Chapter 26 Wild-Goose Chase 89

Chapter 27 What is and Isn’t Leadership, and Who are and Aren’t Leaders? 93

Chapter 28 The Mission 96

Chapter 29 The First Standard of a Leader: Accomplish the Mission 100

Chapter 30 Leaders Ask “How?” 104

Chapter 31 The Little Things Take Care of the Big Things 107

Chapter 32 The Second Standard of a Leader: Take Care of Your Teammates 112

Chapter 33 Mission First, People Always 115

Chapter 34 Controlled and Uncontrolled Environments 118

Chapter 35 Developing Leaders 124

Chapter 36 The Power of Delegation 128

Chapter 37 Leadership is a Contact Sport 130

Chapter 38 The Roles of a Leader 134

Section IV Be Tough 143

Chapter 39 Mount Everest: Facing the Challenge 145

Chapter 40 The Case for Physical Fitness 147

Chapter 41 Defining Toughness 151

Chapter 42 A Light Switch, Not a Dial 153

Chapter 43 Toughness: A Learned Trait 155

Chapter 44 Developing Physical Toughness 157

Chapter 45 What is Mental Toughness, and When Do We Need It? 162

Chapter 46 Don’t Rise to the Occasion 165

Chapter 47 Be Passionate, Not Emotional 169

Chapter 48 Choose a Positive Attitude 172

Chapter 49 Inoculate Against Stress 175

Chapter 50 Go or No Go? 177

Chapter 51 Go! 180

Chapter 52 The Death Zone 182

Chapter 53 The Summit, but Not Mission Accomplishment 185

Chapter 54 Mission Accomplished 188

Section V No Excuses 195

Chapter 55 No Excuses 197

Chapter 56 A Life-Changing Explosion 199

Chapter 57 I Don’t Have Enough Time 203

Chapter 58 Make Preparations, Not Excuses 206

Chapter 59 Being Motivated is Not Enough 209

Chapter 60 We Don’t Get What We Deserve—We Get What We Earn! 211

Chapter 61 Don’t Let Anyone Make Excuses for You 213

Section VI Hard Work is One More™ 217

Chapter 62 A Female Marine in Helmand Province, Afghanistan 219

Chapter 63 We Work Hard 221

Chapter 64 One More™ in a Combat Environment 223

Chapter 65 Long-Term Greedy 225

Chapter 66 Focus on Strengths, Address Weaknesses 227

Chapter 67 Determining Our “Why” 230

Chapter 68 The FET is a Target 233

Section VII Effective Communication 239

Chapter 69 Alone on the Beach 241

Chapter 70 Using CLAPP to Communicate Effectively 243

Chapter 71 Listening to Understand 247

Chapter 72 Battlefield Communication 250

Chapter 73 Three Important Questions 253

Chapter 74 Tell Your Teammates What You Want Them to Do! 256

Chapter 75 Using a Back Brief 259

Chapter 76 Closed-Loop Communication 261

Chapter 77 Ignoring the Noise 263

Chapter 78 Putting the Communication Techniques Together 265

Acknowledgments 271

About the Authors 275

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