Thoughts on Leading through Setbacks

In 2018, I learned an important lesson about failure and how to personally overcome it. More critically, I had the opportunity to experience the stark difference between being supported and being demeaned while experiencing that setback. We all encounter failure to some extent in our professional lives, but many of us have a profound resentment to sharing it publicly (or even privately) for fear of embarrassment. Too often our egos get in the way, or we try to avoid revisiting failure altogether by burying it deep inside. As leaders we can be tempted to paint ourselves in the best light possible in front of our teams, believing that we need to be the example of success. But does that really promote the right culture for our organization? Is perfection a reasonable expectation for teams that are expected to innovate and try new things?

I am a steadfast believer that leaders sharing stories about our lowest points can make our organizations better. It is empowering to hear about human nature and it builds trust. In the military, we utilized After Action Reports – reviews of the positive and negative outcomes from an event - to determine how we might approach a problem differently in the future. The best AAR sessions promoted transparency and accountability, while keeping it open and trusting because we were genuinely learning from the good, the bad, and the ugly. What we talked about in those sessions might be the spark that helps someone else avoid a similar scenario in the future and potentially save lives.

Many of my teams have heard my story about “Pulling a Spinelli” but for the broader audience, what follows is one of my favorite personal experiences of failure/setback and how someone decided to pick me up in a moment of need.

FORT BENNING, GEORGIA. I was a student at Army Ranger School in May 2018. I was a Captain, a commissioned officer at the O-3 rank, going through a course that primarily consisted of enlisted Soldiers from the 75th Ranger Regiment and Infantry/Armor Lieutenants who had just completed their Basic Officer Leadership Course. The average age was somewhere between 23-25 and I was 29. Rank does not matter at Ranger School, but as one of the more experienced and older attendees I felt confident in my ability to be successful. I had successfully completed similar training previously and I knew what to expect. The course traditionally has a pass rate below 50% and many Soldiers will prepare for years to attend, only to go home emptyhanded without graduating. No one graduates from Ranger School without supporting one another and the team at large. Most lose 35-45 pounds of body weight in the process.

Ranger School is a three-phase course that lasts a minimum of 61 days and requires a student to pass a series of rigorous physical and leadership challenges in a stressful environment. These training conditions are achieved through sleep/food deprivation and a series of progressively more difficult trials and gates. Studies have estimated that students often traverse over 200 miles on foot during 26 days of graded patrols while carrying a load exceeding 100 pounds.

Each phase has an academic portion and a field portion, and it tests students to explore their physical, mental, and emotional limits. The course has a built-in element of group accountability. At the end of each phase, each student gives a peer-rating to the members of their squad. An accumulation of low scores can be an indicator to instructors that the student was not giving their full effort to support their classmates. This mechanism is often used to verify that students are not “spotlighting” themselves when actively being graded or capture a reason why a student should not move to a following phase due to something that happened outside the purview of the instructors. Failure to pass the peer evaluation, academics, or field portions in each phase results in the student “recycling” that phase and extending their stay at Ranger School beyond 61 days. A few friends of mine successfully completed the course after spending nearly 180 days at Ranger School. A significant infraction can result in being dismissed altogether or being offered a Day 1 Recycle – effectively starting the course all over again. At all times during the course, this possibility hangs over you.

Contact with the outside world is limited during Ranger School – students receive an opportunity to call home between phases and can receive letters and care packages during the course. I personally asked for one of my friends to write me about current events in the outside world to give me some perspective. Fear of recycling is a common mental barrier. Graduation from Ranger School results in the award of a small tab that is affixed above the left shoulder of the combat uniform and worn for the duration of your career. It is a coveted achievement and represents the individual’s membership in an exclusive club of less than 1% of the Army.

I had just passed the first week of Ranger School – commonly known as RAP week. The next day, those of us who were Airborne qualified were going to participate in an airborne operation and be inserted into the Darby Phase to begin training. I had been to Jump School but had not participated in an airborne operation in three years. Jump manifests, prepared by the jumpmasters supervising any air lift, require proof of identification – a military Common Access Card (CAC) – and you must have this on your person during final manifest in order to participate in the airborne operation. The night before our jump I had carefully laid out my gear for the following day – separating the equipment I was going to carry with me on the jump from the rucksack that was going into a box truck to be taken to the training area. I put my CAC into my shirt pocket and went to sleep, knowing that I would need it the next day. The following morning, I changed shirt tops. I placed the top that contained my CAC into my rucksack – destined for the box truck.

It was raining that morning. Hard. Outside there were nearly 300 Ranger students all waiting to load their rucksacks onto the box truck to be transported to Camp Darby. I was one of the first students to load my ruck onto this truck. I promptly jogged back to a covered area, a very large pavilion over a bed of rocks, and sat down to wait for the process to finish. It was approximately 15 minutes later that I realized my mistake. My rucksack, containing the all-important CAC, was now buried by a wall of rucks inside the box truck. I needed that ID card.

I ran over to the box truck in a panic. I had heard about these sorts of incidents from friends who had attended Ranger School in the past. Minimally, I was looking at a reprimand, but very possibly could be sent home for a failure to have the proper equipment for the jump. With rain pouring, and several dozen students still patiently waiting in that rain to put their rucks onto the truck, I hopped into the back screaming for the Rangers loading the truck to stop.

My classmates were confused. Who was this guy? I explained to several of them that I needed to get into my rucksack. But which one was it?

“Look for the one labeled ‘Spinelli.’”

Oh boy. As I dove into the trailer, frantically pulling rucks back and digging, I could sense this murmur spreading through the crowd behind me.

“Who is that?”

“What is he doing?”

“He’s looking for his rucksack.”

“What is his name?”

“Spinelli.”

Now I was identified. Rucks that were previously dry in this trailer were now on the ground outside the trailer. Equipment, clothes, personal items – all getting wet in the pouring rain because I was that guy who needed to get to my rucksack buried in this truck. After seemingly forever, and dripping in sweat, I finally found the rucksack and retrieved the ID. I helped reload all of the rucks that I had displaced back into the truck. With the truck now completely loaded, I made my way back to the covered pavilion and prepared for the consequences. Everybody knew it was Spinelli who was responsible. I was Spinelli.

I was physically exhausted, mentally drained, and, frankly, embarrassed. I was a Captain, and I knew better than this. I never did this sort of thing. I had messed up – but in a way that did not just affect me but literally everyone in that class. Their equipment was wet – and we were about to go to the field for 8 days without any access to laundry or dryers. One of the few creature comforts in Ranger School is hot food – the other is clean and dry equipment. I started to hear the catcalls.

“What kind of idiot forgets his CAC?”

“Spinelli you’re never getting out of here.”

“We’re going to ‘peer’ you.”

I was miserable. A fellow student walked up to me, as I was sitting on a bag under that pavilion. He kicked rocks at me as he muttered, “F*** you, Spinelli.” Could I really blame him? I was alone in my thoughts, a mixture of sweat and rain still dropping from my face.

A Ranger Instructor, one of the Soldiers with the training unit who had already passed Ranger School and ran the course, called out for a detail of twelve Ranger students to assist with a task before our departure. I was sitting clear across the structure from where this call originated, and physically was still recovering the rucksack incident. When I did not immediately hop up to work the detail, a couple of the Ranger students around me let me know they did not appreciate the lack of effort. ?

“Not going to volunteer for that Spinelli, huh?”

"Sounds like a perfect job for you."

“What an a**h***.”

I had reached rock bottom. I was getting visual and verbal confirmation that this was going to be a lasting impression. I was forever going to be Spinelli, the most hated student in the class. There really was no way that I was going to pass now. My peers would make sure of it. No Ranger tab for me. The course had just barely gotten underway too.

Just when I thought things could not get any worse, a fellow student came up to me and sat next to me on that bag. I looked up and examined his face briefly – I did not recognize him, but he could not have been much older than 20. I lowered my head, resuming my close examination of the ground in front of me, purposely avoiding eye contact with this guy and any of the countless other students who had been generally glancing in my direction. I was bracing myself for further verbal abuse. Or rocks.

“I bet you feel pretty miserable right now.”

Looking up, I just nodded slowly, thinking to myself, “Yeah…not sure it gets much worse,” but unable to respond verbally. I think my eyes said it all.

He took a breath and said, “I get it. You screwed up. But what happens next?”

The man had my attention. I was so preoccupied with thinking about my miserable existence and how badly I wanted to crawl into a hole, I had not put much thought into anything but the present moment. I was going to get peered, that was what was next. I was staring down the gun-barrel of 15 more days of training that I was certainly going to repeat the following month. I also had not expected someone to suddenly offer some support. I was shocked.

He continued, “I have been watching you. Here’s the thing – if you do not get out of your own head, you really are not going to make it out of here.”

This kid, all 20 years of age, was spewing some real wisdom. He was right. I was not doing myself any favors sitting there basking in my own self-pity. But here was the one guy in this group of 300 who was willing to offer some support and perspective.

He gestured his hand in the direction of the other Ranger students sitting around me, “We’re all going to have our moments here when we are ‘Spinelli.’ Today was your day. You were ‘Spinelli.’ What matters is that you put this behind you and move forward. It is a long course, and no one is going to remember this two-weeks from now. But if you continue to dwell on this, I can guarantee that this is not going to go well for you.”

I thanked him and shook his hand. I never got his name – he was not in my squad or even in my training company - and I was so in my own world at that moment that I did not remember from his uniform. I never saw him again. But his message was loud and clear (and lasting) – I was oozing depression and self-pity. With that attitude I stood no chance at recovering and earning my Ranger tab. I needed to prove to my fellow students that this was a very stupid but also very accidental mistake. No more staring contests with the ground, it was time to buck up and stand face to face with my reality. I needed to change my outlook and my body language. That 20-year-old kid changed the trajectory of my experience in the course and my perspective today.

I went on to graduate Ranger School in July 2018, finishing the course in the 61-day period without any recycles. Pass rates vary from class to class but in a typical graduating class only about 15% graduate without recycling. I received some of the highest peer evaluations in my squad in all phases and there were very few additional mentions of the rucksack incident.

Well, almost.

On the day of graduation, we were gathered down at Victory Pond on Fort Benning, Georgia. All the students who were about to graduate were mingling with their families before the ceremony. I heard somebody call out, “SPINELLI?! You made it?!”

Turning around, I realized this was a guy I had bumped into a few times throughout the course. He had not been directly involved in the rucksack incident but obviously remembered it. He had been talking to his family and saw my last name embroidered across the back of my patrol cap. Most of our interactions in the course had been in passing and he must not have heard my name. Or maybe he was so intensely focused on his own experience that he forgot the connection. Something about being at graduation and seeing my nametape in that moment – he remembered.

“You were the guy who lost his CAC on that truck back in Darby!” He laughed. “I never thought you would make it.”

We shared a good laugh and a handshake. I had made it.

I share this story frequently with my teams for two reasons: first, I never want my organizations to let an irrational fear of failure dominate their decision-making process. The reality is that we all fail. We all have our "Spinelli" moments. What matters is what we do next and what we learn from the failures. How do we recover from our “Spinelli” moment to achieve a bigger goal or ensure no one else makes the same mistake? Second, knowing that we are all going to have our day to be “Spinelli” – we are faced with the option of being the Ranger student who catcalls, kicks rocks, and demeans – or we can be the young Ranger student who takes a moment to be reassuring and to coach. How do we react when someone else in our organization “pulls a Spinelli?”

Fellow leaders – I would encourage you to share your "Spinelli stories." I would certainly never advocate for a cavalier or risk-seeking approach in any business, but I steadfastly believe that teams will be more productive and innovative when supported by leaders who are willing to raise a hand and say, “I screw up too.” After all, “to err is human, to forgive is divine.” I would also encourage all to be understanding and supportive when our teams inevitably fail. Not all failures are created the same and there is no all-encompassing solution to every scenario. However, a supporting Ranger is infinitely more impactful than a heckling Ranger. Public shaming should never be on the table because it is just not effective.

To the nameless Ranger student who changed the trajectory of my Ranger School experience, thank you for your words of wisdom and support on that day in May 2018. I owe you more than just my tab.

Ted Spinelli, Ranger Class 7/18