Commando Culture — Lead by Example
Applying special forces values and culture in your startup team.
August 9, 2006, the middle of the 2nd Lebanon war, Hezbollah terrorists fire two anti-tank missiles at a house near the Lebanese village of Dabel, in the house there was an IDF paratroopers engineering team. Six are killed immediately, the death toll will rise to nine later.
I get the message as the operations officer of my special forces paratroopers unit. We prepare for a rescue and extraction mission.
Night time, we cross the border and enter the fighting zone under a heavy artillery screen. The loud shell explosions are in sharp contrast to the quiet sound of our jeeps’ wheels on the dirt road. The moon is almost full, visibility is good, no dust. Everything looks green and black via the night vision goggles, the image is clear and sharp thanks to the bright moon. A large field opens to the right with hills on the far side of it, the house is on the left of the road, exposed, we cross a ditch, pass the house and stop in a small orchard behind it. We dismount and secure the area, the scene is gruesome, the younger soldiers are in shock, not knowing what to do, no “dry” training can prepare you for such scenes. The other officers and I take the lead, handling what needs to be handled, our soldiers see and start operating, following the lead. They are all well trained and highly capable. We arrange everything and extract with the bodies of nine of our fellow paratroopers, a few wounded, several 40kg backpacks full of explosives, and the team’s paramedic in a state of shock.
Lead by example is the main motto of the IDF officers academy, quoting Gideon’s message to his warriors “See as I do, so you shall do” near Ein Harod before the attack on the far larger Midian army / Judges Chapter 7.
One of the first questions Israelis are asked in job interviews is “what did you do in the army”. Military training in general, and specific units in particular ingrain their core values, ethics, code of conduct, and culture in their soldiers. This simple question can often tell a lot more about a young candidate than the entire formal hiring process.
In the past 25 years I was the founder and CEO of several tech companies, as well as a commander in an IDF special forces unit. I had the privilege of managing hundreds if not thousands of great employees, and of commanding many highly capable and motivated soldiers and officers.
Over the years, I realized that the long training commanders and officers get, especially in combat units and in the special forces, actually makes them better startup leaders and executives.
Why? Because the most important part of the long training that young soldiers, commanders and officers receive is focused on standards of conduct and behaviour as well as unit culture, so their teammates know they can trust them to do the right thing regardless of how hairy the situation gets.
This is especially true in difficult times. I had the pleasure of starting my last company, OHT, at the end of 2008, and the one before it, Qlusters, in 2001 (Moshe Bar and I raised one of the only seed rounds done in Israel in that year). When the going gets tough the right values and culture will get you going.
The important thing is, when done right and at the right time, it is possible to implement the same culture and values in most startups. Leading by example, as mentioned above, was the natural way of doing things when I started my first company at 23, right after I was released from active duty.
I also realized that many of the leadership and people related lessons mentioned in popular management books like The Amazon Way by John Rossman, The Hard Thing about hard things, What you do is who you are by Ben Horowitz, Principles by Ray Dalio, The Trillion Dollars Coach by Eric Schmidt, and many others, are actually very similar to the lessons and culture we follow and teach soldiers, commanders and officers in the special forces during many years of training and field operations.
Young soldiers and officers learn early-on the culture, the code of conduct, the standards (personal and professional) and ethics of their unit. This code of conduct is more important than physical capabilities, or technical skills (handling weapons etc). In most real combat situations, special forces teams win because of superior culture, values and standards, not just because they are in better physical shape or have better weapons.
Soldiers and officers who survive the long training and ongoing screening process (that takes a few years in some units), are better soldiers, better commanders and also better startup leaders, and better business leaders. But, even if neither you, nor anyone on your team, has that kind of training you can still implement the “commando culture” and benefit from it.
A lot has been written about the Israeli military service as a key success factor of Israel as a “startup nation”. But, most writers missed an important aspect of the military service. In many cases the “hidden advantage” is not the technical skills acquired during the service, but rather the culture and values.
From my experience, the cultural impact and the fact that a startup can easily locate people with certain ethical and cultural qualities, not just technical, is the real advantage.
In the following posts I will cover some of the values and culture we teach young soldiers and officers, like lead by example, friendship, brothers in arms, total honesty, complete the mission at all cost, making decisions under pressure and uncertainty, make do with what’s available, “big head” ownership, humility, questioning authority, investigating and improving and more. I will try to demonstrate how they apply to the startup world based on the experience of my friends and I in both worlds. All the stories I share in these posts are unclassified or were declassified and approved for sharing with the general public.
I hope these posts will help non-veteran founders build and benefit from a “commando-culture” in their startups. As well as, get more veterans in other countries to join and contribute their culture and leadership experience to the tech industry, just like they do in Israel.
I would like to sincerely thank Micol Debash for editing and for the useful comments. If there are any remaining issues only I am to blame.
