What I learned in boot camp a long long time ago.
I joined the Coast Guard in 1975 and joined Forming Company Delta 109 for boot camp January 1976 on what is now known as “Coast Guard Island” under the Oakland bridge in California. I learned three of the most important lessons of my life there. You may well have already figured these things out. If so, then just enjoy the story. If not, maybe you won’t have to go to bootcamp to learn them.
I will need three posts to share them with you, however. So, I hope you will find these stories entertaining enough to stick with me that long.
Here is the first important thing I learned: UAC
We are all unique, but we are also all alike.
I will never forget the first or second day there (can’t remember which it was anymore). We were all marched into a room beside our barracks. A chief petty officer (that means he has been around a long time. Chief petty officers really run the show) stepped into the room and said “I bet you all think you are all a really unique bunch of non-conformists”.
He was right. After all, it was 1975. We were all doing what we thought they were doing in the 60’s and we all thought of ourselves as “free spirits”. So yes, I know that I thought of myself as a “non-conformist”.
Then he said something that made my world spin out from under me. He said “Look around. Who here is not wearing Bell Bottoms? Who here does not have hair on his shoulders? Who here is not wearing at least one Peace Symbol?”… And, he was right. I, just like every one else, was wearing a pair of green corduroy bell bottoms, enhanced by adding a bright orange handkerchief with a peace symbol to increase the flare of the “bells” (it was so very mid 70’s). My hair was on my shoulders. I was wearing a ring which also had a peace symbol on it. I will never forget the odd sensation that went through me as I realized that somehow, in our efforts to be unique, we had all managed to conform to a model we weren’t, for the most part, even aware of. We had all accepted the same basic goals without giving them much thought.
Over the next several weeks there at bootcamp, we all learned to conform to a different model and work for different goals. However, this time we were all aware we were doing it.
So what is the lesson here? What can you learn from my bootcamp epiphany regarding cultural conformity and goals?
UAC.
When you join a team, they will already have a culture and goals. You are not there to be a disrupter. If they hired you, it was because they evaluated your skills and personality and thought you would be a good fit. So be a good fit.
Understand.
Take the time to look around and understand the culture and goals of the team you find yourself in. If possible, learn as much about them before you accept the offer.
Once you understand, you should decide whether you can live and work within the existing culture and work to help achieve existing goals because they are unlikely to change for you. And if decide you can…
Accept.
I’m not saying you should become some perfect corporate drone. Instead, I am saying you should accept the fact that the culture and goals you find are not likely to change soon. You will not show up on day one and change the culture or goals. You will be expected to work within the culture and help reach the goals that already exist. The odds that you are being hired to disrupt the culture or change the goals are so low that they are virtually non-existent. Accept that.
Commit.
If can accept the culture and goals, commit yourself to them. Join your team, don’t try to make them join you. Embrace the culture. Help them accomplish their goals. If your team wins, you will win with them. If your team fails and you worked along with them to reach the goal, you will be remembered as a team player and you will have learned a lot of interesting things along the way. But if you never tried to fit in, if you constantly complained that they had the wrong goals (even if you were right), you will be remembered as part of the problem. Maybe you will even be remembered (rightly or wrongly) as the reason they failed. So, commit to their culture and help them reach their goals.
Never forget this. You will succeed or fail with your team.
Understand your team’s culture and goals.
Accept them for what they are.
Commit yourself to them.
And if you find that you can’t understand, accept, or commit, look for a different team where you can.
We live in a shrinking world. Over the course of your career, you will see the many of the same people again and again. You will find that it is better to be remembered as “someone we interviewed once that didn’t accept the position” than it is to be remembered as “someone who joined our team and just couldn’t fit in, constantly complained about the goals, and never seemed to be on the team".
Next Post, I will tell you what I learned marching around camp for a week with my underwear over my head. I suspect you will find it a lot more entertaining than this one was.