Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

move in any direction. Your plan is so complex that there is no way that
they can mindfully move in the direction that would increase their
bonus. Even when they use operant conditioning on rats, the rats have to
understand what they are being punished or rewarded for. If there is not a
strong enough correlation between the behavior and the reward or the
punishment, then behavior will never be modified. If the rats don’t know
why they received a sugar pellet or why they were just given an electric
shock, they will not change.”
“So our people are rats?” the chief engineer said jokingly.
I laughed—it was funny—but then I replied, “No, not at all. But all
animals, including humans, need to see the connection between action
and consequence in order to learn or react appropriately. The way you
have this set up, they can’t see that connection.”
“Well, they could see it if they looked and took the time to figure it
out,” replied the production manager.
“It certainly is possible that they could. But they don’t. People
generally take the path of least resistance. It is just in our nature. Let me
ask you this: What kind of quantifiable lift have you gotten out of this
incentive plan?” I asked.
“You know, honestly we haven’t seen any real, meaningful pickup,”
the production manager admitted. “Definitely not as much as we thought
we would.”
“This actually isn’t surprising to me,” I said. “Your plan violates one
of the most important principles we adhered to in combat: simplicity.
When young SEAL leaders in training look at targets for training
missions, they often try to develop a course of action that accounts for
every single possibility they can think of. That results in a plan that is
extraordinarily complex and very difficult to follow. While the troops