A Team of Leftovers Outworked the All-Stars
A Navy SEAL commander learned to pick trust over resumes after his dream team fell apart.
Not Dead Yet · William McRavenWilliam McRaven spread the personnel files across his desk like draft cards. As the No. 2 officer at SEAL Team One, the Navy commando unit, his job was to assemble the fighting teams, known as platoons, from incoming resumes and biographies.
He decided to build a perfect one. He pulled the Naval Academy graduates, an Olmsted scholar, a military officer chosen for competitive study abroad, a chief petty officer with Vietnam experience, and the strongest enlisted men he could find. The rest of the platoons got whoever was left. The last of them, the 10th platoon, was like the Bad News Bears, the misfit kids from the movie.
The experiment became the team building lesson McRaven has carried ever since. A group that trusts each other will beat a collection of stars that does not. Talent matters, he says, but if he must choose between talent and chemistry, he chooses chemistry.
On paper, his super platoon should have dominated. In practice, it became the worst platoon because the men could not work together. Each man thought he was the top dog, and their egos got in the way of the work.
The 10th platoon had the opposite start, and then the opposite result. Stuck with the leftovers, the men, as McRaven put it, "had a little bit of a chip on their shoulder" and "figured out how to work together." McRaven calls them one of the best platoons he ever served with.
It changed how he builds any team. He does not start by finding a Michael Jordan and adding helpers around him. He looks at all the puzzle pieces first, searching for people who follow the chain of command, are passionate about the mission, and are willing to sacrifice, whether in the military, in schools, in hospitals, or in business.
That does not mean he wants quiet pushovers. He wants people with a little swagger, the confidence to act under pressure, but without ego. The ideal teammate, he says, understands "they're not the smartest man or woman in the room," listens to other ideas, and then backs the leader and gets moving.
He still calls that 10th platoon one of the best he ever served with.
Questions people ask
How big is a SEAL platoon?
A SEAL platoon is the basic fighting unit of the Navy SEALs, usually about 16 commandos plus officers. It trains, deploys, and fights together, often in smaller squads, so members must rely closely on each other.
How can a manager test for chemistry when hiring?
Look for shared work before you need it, such as training, small projects, or hard rehearsals. People who take turns leading, admit mistakes, and credit others tend to build trust faster than groups of individual stars.
Why does swagger help if ego hurts?
Swagger is confidence that steadies other people under pressure, while ego makes someone stop listening. McRaven wants teammates who act boldly but still assume someone else in the room may have the better idea.