“Specialist Young...what is the golden rule?!”
I was soaking wet in the middle of an Army P.T. circle during my first Non-Commissioned Officer Education System course. All of us students were there to learn how to be Sergeants, authorized to take ownership of an Army team. That morning I led the class in physical training, which started with a blistering 3 mile run that left several of my classmates behind, and me unsatisfied with their level of effort. My anger erupted into a barrage of insults at the formation until the instructor kindly told me to shut up.
Standing calmly in the middle of the circle of panting Soldiers, my brow darkened further while considering the question...“Specialist Young!?”
“Uh...choose the hard right over the easy wrong?” I managed.
A ring of puzzled faces stared at me. You could have heard a pin drop on the wet Washington grass. Clearly I had the answer wrong, but I didn’t know why.
“Uh...no.” My instructor looked through me for what seemed like an hour.
“Everybody, tell Specialist Young what the golden rule is…”
In unison, “treat others as you would like to be treated,” assailed me from the circular ambush!
“Huh...go figure,” I thought. “That works too,” I said and shrugged off the next thirty minutes of push ups.
Moments like those are hard to forget because they expose our order of precedence in thought. Always choose the hard right over the easy wrong was the natural answer to me, because in the two years I had served as a Ranger, aside from the Ranger Creed, the three “golden rules” that were hammered into me were:
Always choose the harder right over the easier wrong
Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions
Hope for the best, plan and prepare for the worst
I originally assumed it was a trick question (since there were three golden rules), and felt I had done a fair job picking what seemed like the most golden of the rules.
As my colleagues pointed out, I was somewhat oblivious to THE Golden Rule, and that probably needed some work. The three golden rules that I was taught as a young Ranger weren't particularly helpful with making friends, but I would later realize that they were vital in forging a mindset for overcoming adversity - highly valuable in a profession highlighted by difficult missions in bad weather, severe terrain, and hostile environments. The Rangers and other Special Operations units are a laboratory of adversity that teach you to persevere and win in austere circumstances. Life in these organizations is a series of humbling and hard-earned lessons that kept us alive in combat and set me up for success in business.
Probably the most important of these lessons was Choosing the Hard Right.
Taking the harder path is, well...hard. It requires us to be uncomfortable, to give a little extra, to make a deposit in the bank. It’s paying now for an undetermined future benefit. And we humans are not particularly good with delayed gratification. But make no mistake, the compounding effects of your small, daily decisions will ultimately determine the trajectory of your life. As the great Bulgarian weightlifting coach, Jerzy Gregorek likes to say, “Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.” Or as Blayne and I often put it, “Eat your broccoli!”
We know that life always moves forward, and forces us to take the ups and downs we are given, whether we like them or not. But the choices we make on the journey will dictate whether that path is taking us up or down as we move forward. Those who routinely take the path of least resistance will end up in the low ground of obscurity, while those who choose the hard right will discover the mountain tops of victory. As leaders we must reject the path of least resistance, the outcome is too costly in the long haul.
The path of least resistance is always easy to find in the wilderness. We call them, “natural lines of drift”, those contours of the land that push their travelers where they want to, like sheep. They typically nudge us gradually down hill, one small side-step at a time. Natural lines of drift become the trails in the woods that are eventually worn by wild game and must be avoided at all costs by a military unit, because following them might just land you into an enemy ambush. For most leaders in organizations, following natural lines of drift is often a slower, subtler path highlighted by relaxed standards, lack of accountability, distant and disconnected leadership, punting on decisions, and avoiding difficult conversations. The word “drift” should tell you all you need to know about that path. Nobody who drifts through anything in life will achieve big goals that make a difference in the world.
Most teams never realize it until they find themselves in the swamp, covered by triple canopy forest, getting eaten alive by mosquitos. The only thing that will get you out of that mess is setting your direction to true north (your mission), and slogging out of the dingy darkness, together, with the same team you walked to the bottom.
Choosing the hard right over the easy wrong is not just a great rule for Soldiering and business, it’s also a great rule for life. You can’t credit card your way to wealth, there are no shortcuts to relationships, and you can’t outwork a bad diet. In life, consistently making the small "right" choices is a lot easier than fighting your way out of the low ground by having to make a big (and painful) "right" choice.
So, as you persevere through your organization’s particular brand of adversity, ask yourself if there is a hard decision you really, really don’t want to make...and that’s probably the next “hard right” that must be faced. We cannot wish the hard stuff away. You can, however, consistently sidestep the hard decisions, going deeper into the low ground.
And finally, whether you’re in the valley, or on the high ground, treat others as they wish to be treated. As it turns out that golden rule still reigns supreme regardless of circumstances, but is especially appreciated in the hard times. Caring for your team in the struggle ensures that by the time you do get out of the swamp, you’ll still have your whole team with you to enjoy the view from the top with.