Breakdown:

1. Introduction: SEAL Team 6 – The World’s Highest Performing Organization
   • SEAL Team 6 is often considered one of the most elite and high-performing teams in the world. Their approach to building a strong team offers valuable lessons for any organization or leader.
   • During an interview with the head of SEAL Team 6’s training, a crucial insight emerged about how they select members for such a highly specialized team.
2. The Performance vs. Trust Matrix
   • The head of training explained their selection process by drawing an XY axis with “Performance” on the vertical axis and “Trust” on the horizontal axis.
   • While many organizations focus on performance as the primary metric for success, SEAL Team 6 considers trust equally, if not more, important in determining a person’s value to the team.
3. High Performance, Low Trust: The Toxic Team Member
   • SEAL Team 6 discovered that a high performer with low trust is a toxic member. This individual may achieve impressive results but erodes team cohesion and creates a negative work environment.
   • Toxic high performers can undermine the team’s long-term success, making them more of a liability than an asset.
4. The Power of High Trust, Medium (or Even Low) Performance
   • The SEALs would prefer a medium performer with high trust over a high performer with low trust. In some cases, they would even choose someone with relatively low performance if their trustworthiness was high.
   • A trustworthy team member enhances collaboration, morale, and long-term mission success, ensuring the team functions as a cohesive unit.
5. The Problem in Business: Metrics for Performance but Not Trust
   • In the business world, there are numerous metrics to evaluate performance, but little to no metrics for measuring trustworthiness.
   • This leads to a dangerous cycle where high performers who lack trust are promoted, eventually becoming toxic leaders. The long-term impact of promoting such individuals is detrimental to organizational culture and success.
6. The SEAL Team 6 Approach: Fostering a Culture of Trust
   • SEAL Team 6 emphasizes the importance of trustworthiness over raw performance because a highly trusted team member will always act in the best interest of the team and mission.
   • This principle can be applied to any organization, encouraging leaders to prioritize trust when evaluating team members for promotions or leadership roles.
7. Conclusion: Balancing Performance and Trust for Long-Term Success
   • SEAL Team 6 teaches us that true elite teams are built not just on performance but on trust. By focusing on trustworthiness as a core criterion for team selection and promotion, organizations can build resilient, high-functioning teams.
   • Leaders should adopt this mindset, recognizing that toxic high performers may achieve short-term wins but damage the team’s long-term success.