[February 14, 2018] Last week I was sitting in a Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) when I overheard several young men talking about their upcoming Basic Training course. One was saying that the Drill Sergeants will tell you to do the impossible and then yell at you when you fail.
I laughed to myself because that happened to me during my army basic training decades ago. What I failed to understand at the time and what these young men did not realize is that the Drill Sergeants are putting their new soldiers into impossible situations to see what they will do to overcome obstacles.
Military leaders, just like the Drill Sergeants being whispered about at the MEPS, are looking at how soldiers perform when giving such an impossible task. In other words, do the soldiers pull together and work in harmoniously? Do they bicker and argue without any tangible results? Do they just sit there and do nothing?
“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” – Walt Disney, American animation pioneer
After several minutes of these young men discussing what to do, I just couldn’t sit by and let their comments pass without me giving comment. They learned that my time in the army might have been “ancient history” (as one of them described it) but the reality was that leaders are always looking for the same thing in their followers.
Leaders are looking for an ability to accomplish the mission (or task or assignment) within the organizations values; despite the mission being impossible. It is no surprise that Americans look upon such people as heroes whenever they succeed. Several very successful movies are based on this idea; those like Mission: Impossible (1996), Unbroken (2014), and Rocky (1976).
If you are in any leadership position, you may have been given a mission that seemed impossible to accomplish within the framework of your values. These are times that separate the good from the great and tells us who can be relied upon to get the job done.
This is where good leadership makes a difference. You don’t always have to accomplish the goal … sometimes it’s how you get there.
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Same here! My time as an enlisted man was full of sergeants telling me to do things I thought at the time to be impossible. In combat getting a mission that was difficult (I read it “impossible”) was an everyday occurrence. Did I say “no” I’m not doing it? Of course not. I did it because the Army had taught me initiative, motivation, etc. I did it and accomplished every single mission. Tht is why they begin by teaching you to do the impossible.