Courage to Execute: What elite U.S. military units can teach business about leadership and team performance

Chapter 6

Continuous Improvement: The Debrief Imperative

Like few other teams, the Blue Angels have made continuous improvement an exact science. They call it debriefing.

The trust that bonds their squadron stems from an absolutely relentless dedication to reviewing their performance, assessing each aviator, and making everyone better. What's particularly notable? Each season, half of this elite-performing team is new—a turnover rate of 50 percent. Yet their meticulous process of debriefing makes them all fly like veterans.

Inside the Blue Angels' hangar at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, is their debriefing room, a veritable shrine to continuous improvement. A fanatical dedication to constant fine-tuning and progress is how this elite, high-performing unit still becomes better each day. After every practice or show, the six Blue Angel pilots gather in the debriefing room, which is an ideal environment for a private and frank discussion. Each team member leaves his rank at the door. During a debrief, no ranks exist. Nothing is personal. Everything is professional. The Blue Angels become a peer group of aviators dedicated to improving the performance of the entire team. They'll never fly the perfect mission, but they aim to get closer every single flight.

They take seats around a long conference table and watch video of their most recent flight on a flat screen monitor. They find the flaws in each part of the mission and discuss them openly. Was Two out of position during ...