follow = to emulate, match, or surpass in quality and trait

Success is a team effort.

For application in business environments the distinction between Marines and Sailors can be translated as Marines=direct functions, and Sailors=indirect, or support/supplier/customer functions personnel.

Instill discipline, cross-training, and collaboration in the team and between direct and support functions. Most importantly, inspect to ensure standards are met and adhere to them consistently and continually by maintaining ownership, transparency, and urgency on issues from everyone.

Do not tolerate underperformance. Continuously cross-train personnel in all individual functions and responsibilities. This is required to cover absences, test and evaluate competencies, prevent key-person risks, promote people, build cohesion, share best practices, rotate crappy functions and tasks, and improve overall team effectiveness.

Maintain good relationships with other teams and organizations, or more specifically, your suppliers, your support, and your customers. Cross-training between business teams also helps to align and improve supplier and customer interactions between business processes and functions.

BACK-TO-TOP

Manage the functions towards outcomes; lead the people towards solutions. Move swiftly.

Rule #1: In God we trust, everyone else must provide data and evidence. Go and See.

Rule #2: Always make the primary focus of efforts and outcomes to minimize risk to personnel, the organization, and its ability to serve its customers.

Rule #3: Communicate and collaborate often, quickly, clearly, and specifically to stay aligned. 

Rule #4: The first step toward a solution is to clearly understand and appreciate the problem and its causes. 

Rule #5: Employ a process mindset when assessing workflow. Map the workflow relationships between functions as a Supplier-Input-Process-Output-Customer (S.I.P.O.C) relationship.

Rule #6: Do not tolerate willful disobedience or underperformance. 

Rule #7: Do not waste time trying to optimize or improve tasks, processes, functions, procedures or opinions that should not exist in the first place.

Rule #8: Move forward swiftly and with a sense of urgency. Be patient in seeking understanding, and urgent in applying actions.

Prepare them for your responsibilities and duties in the future.

Create a culture of self-reliance, initiative, judgement, accountability, and dependability.

A well-disciplined and highly effective team will maintain operations, performance, and constancy of purpose in your absence. 

The objective is to create personnel who are competent, dependable, self-reliant, and demonstrate good judgement and take initiative.

Develop and advance your personnel through delegation.

Develop personnel by delegating tasks and responsibilities above and beyond their current roles and duties. Observe how well they improvise, adapt, and overcome.

Basically, send them on small quests to test their skills at problem solving, teamwork and planning. If you throw a ball and they come back with a shoe, keep working on them. Also, find out who is missing a shoe.

• Provide clear objectives and delegate appropriately. 
• Delegate proper authority when assigning responsibility. 
• It is better to make them competent, than to protect them.
• Establish daily reporting of progress. STAY INVOLVED