Commando Culture #5 — For a greater cause
The 5th post in the series. The previous ones are:
Lead by example https://tinyurl.com/CommandoCulture1
Smile to Change https://tinyurl.com/CommandoCulture2
Big-Head part 1 https://tinyurl.com/CommandoCulture3a
Big-Head part 2 https://tinyurl.com/CommandoCulture3b
July 2006, the town of Zefat in the north of Israel. 2nd Lebanon war. The town where my parents were living is bombarded by the Hizballah with hundreds of missiles and rockets fired from south Lebanon. Most of the families were evacuated to safer places. My parents refused to evacuate, they insisted on staying and helping the people who could not leave.
My parents did their daily routine volunteering to deliver food to, mostly old, people who stayed in Zefat despite the rockets. They went to the Mamalacti Gimel school in the south of Zefat to pick up the food that was prepared by other volunteers. The missile attack Alarm sounded, my mom asked that they stop and go to the nearest shelter. My dad said lets finish up, people are waiting for their food. They prepared everything, and waited for the alarm to end. Then they got to the car and drove off down the street to their first stop, Eliyahu, an elderly holocaust survivor. As they got off the car they saw a Katyusha rocket (BM 21) flying over their head and hitting the parking spot they left a min ago with a big explosion. Had they stopped what they were doing when the alarm started, it would have been a direct hit.
At the same time I was fighting in Lebanon, my parents were behind me, about 10 miles south of the border. Knowing that I was literally protecting my home and them, made a big difference. When I was fighting in the Gaza strip, my relatives were less than 10 miles behind me in the city of Sederot, which had suffered since 2001(!) a massive missile and rocket attacks from Gaza. The motivation was similar. Not just for me, many of my soldiers had someone they care about under a direct missile attack (either from Gaza or from Lebanon).
The combat soldiers in the IDF understand very well what they are fighting for, and why they have to win. They just need to look behind them, or recall history. Having this level of motivation, knowing that you must win, makes all the difference.
The same is true in startups. My first company, CoreTech, developed a life saving Cardiological device. The team understood very clearly that what we do saves lives, a clear purpose, and a strong cause. Of course if your product or service really saves lives, or changes the world in some other major way, motivation is easy. Still, even when your company does not save lives nor save the world, it is better if the reason the company exists is more than just “to make money”. When employees, partners, and customers clearly understand why what your company does is important the chances of success are way bigger. I guess most people are familiar with Simon Sinek TED talk “Start with Why — How great leaders inspire action”, if not it is highly recommended in that context.
The sense of giving everything you have for the cause, to the point of risking your life, is “built-in” most combat soldiers. The right purpose can drive your team to similar execution heights.
