The Program

24Consistency Builds Trust

TRUST IS THE foundation of every relationship. Our teammates deserve to know how we will behave not just when things are going well, but, most importantly, when they are not. They need to trust us, and vice versa. If not, our relationship will have a poor foundation. Unfortunately, teammates, and team leaders alike, destroy that trust constantly in ways that can be avoided.

A corporate teammate who produces an excellent product on Monday but then turns in substandard work on Wednesday destroys trust. A business partner or teammate who does their assigned tasks only some of the time destroys trust. A football player who goes hard on first down, but then takes second down off, or a softball player focused during one at-bat, but not the next, destroys trust. Teammates, and team leaders, have no idea who they are going to get, and hence, what they are going to get. Consistent behavior is predictive of consistent performance. Consistency is key.

By the middle of their deployment, Det 1 had experienced much success. They had conducted several successful direct-action raids. They had become very proficient with the method in which they breached and attacked through the crisis site. Prior to deployment, Det 1 had practiced the same mission hundreds of times over thousands of hours of training. Each Marine had a job to do and standards to meet every single time. Throughout their training and during earlier successful operations in Iraq, the breacher had blown ...