_The real courage is seeing the truth and speaking the truth to each other._  
- Dave Cooper, retired Navy SEAL.

You may not have heard of Team Six, but you will know of its successful mission, which resulted in the death of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.

Author Daniel Coyle _\(The Culture Code\)_ sought out legendary Team Six leader Dave Cooper \(now retired from the U.S. Navy\), whose teams often succeeded _when things went to hell  **especially** when they went to hell._

Here, Daves lessons and insights on building a hugely successful team:

1. **SEALs are highly intelligent, copious readers.** This surprised and hooked the young Dave Cooper when a student. Hed planned to be a doctor, but instead joined up and survived Hell Week and the selection process to become a SEAL. Now a business entrepreneur solving complex risk management problems for clients, Dave Cooper continues to be a keen reader. He recommended these books in an interview for Stanfords Graduate School of Business: _Walden_ by Henry David Thoreau. _Thinking Fast and Slow_ by Daniel Kahneman and _Meditations_ by Marcus Aurelius.
  2. **_If a superior tells you to do something, by God we tend to follow it._** Dave said this to Daniel, explaining that humans have an authority bias thats incredibly strong and unconscious. He says having one person tell other people what to do is _not_ a reliable way to make good decisions. So, how do you develop a hive mind? _You have to create conditions where people challenge each other, to create leaders among leaders_ , he says.
  3. **Merely creating space for cooperation is not enough.** Dave says he had to generate a series of unmistakable signals that tipped his men away from their natural tendencies, and towards interdependence and cooperation. He started with small things like his title. When a new team member used his title, he corrected them with _You can call me Coop, Dave or F@\*%face, its your choice._ He started sentences with _Now, lets see if someone can poke holes in this_ or _Tell me whats wrong with this idea._ He steered away from orders and instead asked a lot of questions _Anybody have any ideas?_
  4. **The best thing to improve a teams cohesion is to send them to do hard, hard training.** Dave told Daniel that _theres something about hanging off a cliff together, and being wet and cold and miserable together, that makes a team come together_. He said spending time together outside, and hanging out helps.
  5. **After-Action Review \(AAR\) is a very useful tool.** After each SEAL mission, a short meeting is held in which the team gathers to discuss and replay key decisions. There are no agendas and no minutes are kept. The goal is to create a flat landscape without rank, where people can figure out what really happened and talk about mistakes  especially their own. _Its got to be safe to talk, rank switched off and humility switched on. Youre looking for that moment where people can say I screwed that up. In fact, they might be the most important words any leader can say: I screwed that up._ Usually, the mission is gone through in chronological order, and every decision and every process is talked about. _You have to resist the temptation to wrap it up in a bow, and try to dig for the truth of what happened, so people can really learn from it._
  6. **The mission to go after Bin Laden came with an order that Dave found unacceptable.** Dave tells in _The Culture Code_ how he tried to convince his superior to not use stealth helicopters on the mission. Without going into detail here, he felt they presented a risk. However, the order stood, so Dave doubled down on preparation. Over two months the SEALs built replicas of the Bin Laden compound, and simulated downed-helicopter scenarios over and over again. Each scenario would be followed by an AAR. In the chilling story set out in _The Culture Code_ , the first helicopter did, as Dave predicted, crash land in the courtyard of the Bin Laden compound, forcing the other helicopter to land outside. All that preparation paid off. Cooper said his team went to work. _They didnt miss a beat. Once they got on the ground, there was zero doubt_. It was over in 38 minutes.

Daniel Coyle writes that Team Six succeeded because they understood that being vulnerable together is the only way a team can become invulnerable.

As Dave Cooper told him _People never want to be the person who says, Wait a second, whats going on here? But inside the squadron, that is the culture, and thats why were successful.  
  
Members of the The Growth Faculty can hear more of this and other stories and lessons from The Culture Code by logging in and [watching our livestream interview](https://www.thegrowthfaculty.com/onDemand/play.php?id=1dcb06c0d4834f88a9fae285e016115a1d) with Daniel Coyle on November 20. We welcome members' questions for Daniel Coyle about teams and culture to include in the interview. [Contact us.](https://www.thegrowthfaculty.com/contact.php)   
  
If you'd like to become a member of The Growth Faculty and get access to our extensive library of Great Ideas and discounts off our live speaker events, [click here](https://www.thegrowthfaculty.com/onDemand/?region=au&deal=Blog). _

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