The Seal Founding Story

I first heard the story of the Navy SEALs when I was a kid. I was obsessed with reading biographies, and someone gave me the story of Draper Kauffman, whose inspiration in WWII France led to the founding of the US Navy SEALs.?

1933 Draper Kauffman was rejected from the Navy due to his poor eyesight and rebellious attitude despite his father being an Admiral. Not to be deterred, he volunteered as an ambulance driver in France when the war broke out. He was finally given a role in the British army in Bomb Disposal. His experience with British and French special forces units showed him a fundamentally different team-building method. These units were egalitarian, disobeyed orders often, and were radically committed to one another. He saw individual commandos attack entire units to save one of their own from capture.?

When the Navy asked Draper to start an underwater bomb disposal school, he modeled their culture after what he saw in those units in Normandy. That team would later become the SEALs.

Draper's enduring legacy includes the infamous "hell week," a grueling test of physical and mental endurance that has survived unchanged.

Among the elements of team building that have withstood the test of time is "Log PT," a defining practice that embodies intense vulnerability and deep interconnectedness.?

This is the essence of teamwork—where a smaller, seemingly weaker group of individuals working in perfect sync will consistently outperform a collection of individual athletes who are not operating as a cohesive unit.?

The notion of taking risks for the team's sake is accepted and celebrated within the SEALs, a philosophy deeply ingrained in their training. This allows a group to become stronger than the sum of its constituent parts.

One of the core principles of SEAL teams is that "In the absence of orders, take charge." This principle of individual ownership and decentralized decision-making opens SEAL's approach to unity over individuality. These two values cannot exist without each other. The only way a SEAL can know someone has their back is if the guy next to them owns the mission, and at the same time, belonging to the group allows them to take risks that other soldiers simply cannot.?

The history of the SEALs, as marked by the legacy of Draper Kauffman, is an example of the power of individuals coming together in a tribe, embodying shared values, and living in radical ownership.?

The SEALs story is about fostering a culture based on values rather than rigid hierarchy, with the log serving as an iconic symbol of their ethos.

What would it look like to build a tribe within your company that mirrors the SEALs' dedication to values over systems, where individuals thrive in a culture of belonging and individual ownership?

Top-down is always the conservative play. Systems, processes, orders, and org charts all have a place. However, the SEALs story shows us that there's something even more powerful: tribe.

Learn more about Tribe Building: www.sherwoodfellows.com/

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