How to force multiply organizational health.

I want to tell you about a concept from U.S. Special Forces that relates directly to organizational health. It's called By, With & Through.

Here's how it works in the field: A single Operational Detachment Alpha (that's an ODA, just 12 soldiers) is deployed into a region with a mission. They don't fight the battle alone. They can't. Twelve people can't take on an entire insurgency by themselves. So what do they do?

They operate by the local forces. The local people are the primary maneuver element. They're the ones fighting. They work with those partners, providing training, equipment, and expert advice right there alongside them. And ultimately, they operate through them, achieving strategic goals like dismantling terrorist networks or building sustainable security even after the ODA has packed up and left. Twelve people. A force multiplied across an entire region. Because they invested in the right people with the right skills and trusted them to carry the mission forward.

Now let me tell you why I think every single one of us should be operating this way, especially if you care about building teams that actually thrive. We talk a lot in organizational health about the Ideal Team Player. If you've spent any time in a Lencioni world, you know the three virtues: Humble, Hungry, and Smart. Humble enough to put the team above yourself. Hungry enough to bring the drive without being told. Smart. Not IQ smart, but people smart. Emotionally aware. Attuned to the room.

Here's what I want to add to that conversation: the Ideal Team Player isn't just a profile. It's a methodology. And the Green Beret framework gives us the clearest picture I've ever seen of what it looks like in practice.

An Ideal Team Player operating BY shows up and models it. They don't stand at the whiteboard explaining what healthy conflict looks like. They have the hard conversation. They give the honest feedback. They demonstrate trust-building with someone who doesn't fully trust them yet. The team watches before it follows. That's BY.

An Ideal Team Player operating WITH invests in the person next to them. They narrate their thinking. They name what they see happening in a meeting so others start to see it too. They pull someone aside and say, here's what I noticed, here's what I'd try differently. That's not management. That's mentorship from a peer. That's WITH.

And an Ideal Team Player operating THROUGH? That's when the culture starts to shift without them having to drive it. When a teammate starts having the harder conversation because they watched you do it. When the new person on the team gets onboarded by a colleague instead of a handbook, because your colleague absorbed something and passed it on. That's THROUGH.

Here's what I know to be true after years of doing this work with teams: you don't need a title to change a team's culture. You don't need to be the leader in the room, the most senior person, or the one with the most influence. You need to be Humble, Hungry, and Smart. And you need to operate By, With & Through.

One person doing that consistently, really consistently, is an ODA walking through the front door. Twelve Green Berets changed regional outcomes not because they were the strongest fighters in the room. Because they multiplied their impact through the people they invested in. That's available to every single one of us.

The question isn't whether you have what it takes. The question is who on your next team are you developing? Who are you working with? And who is eventually going to carry this through without you even having to ask? That's the mission.’