Little Things Turn into Big Things: Why Discipline Matters (Even at Risk of Mutiny)

My battle buddy, Tim, and I nearly started a mutiny at our camp in Afghanistan in 2018. At the time, I was the commander of an advisor unit, deployed to partner with the Afghan National Army. That part isn’t really important to the story. What is important is that Tim, a command sergeant major (senior enlisted soldier and advisor to the commander), and I decided to shut down the camp gym because a jump rope went missing. Yep, a single jump rope.

Let me give you some context: The camp where we were deployed had once been one of the largest and most active bases in Afghanistan, but the base had been shuttered for several years. This meant the housing, office spaces, leisure areas, and amenities were mostly gone — including the gym.

One of the best days that year was watching our team unpack and assemble all the equipment we had worked so hard to acquire for our new gym at the camp. Not long after, however, the jump rope went missing.

Tim and I had a decision to make: We could either let this lapse in accountability slide and chalk it up to life on an austere camp, or we could stick to what we believed — that little things turn into big things.

So, we shut down the gym.

Leaders shape team cultures by what they promote and what they tolerate. If you allow people to show up late, you create a culture of lateness. If you allow people to cut corners, you foster a culture of shortcuts.

Letting something slide, even something as small as a missing jump rope, would have sent the message that discipline only mattered for the big things. But we wanted our team to understand that discipline mattered in everything. Excellence is a habit that starts with doing the little things well.

Skipping over the small things erodes trust, causing people to ask, “If they aren’t taking care of this small thing, what else might they be neglecting?” On the other hand, when an entire team takes the small things seriously and strives for excellence in everything, tremendous trust and confidence are developed. I know I can count on you, you can count on me, and together, we can achieve anything.

We loved our team in Afghanistan, and we wanted them to be happy in a place where happiness was in short supply. But we also loved them enough to make sure the little things mattered, knowing that a small detail could make all the difference when it mattered most.

As they say, the devil is in the details — but then, so is excellence.

Be excellent in all things. Be elite in the small things. When you do that, you know you’re giving your team everything you’ve got. You’re doing all that you can. And when your whole team embraces this mindset, there’s no limit to what you can achieve together.

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Little Things Turn into Big Things: Why Discipline Matters (Even at Risk of Mutiny) was originally published in Horizon Performance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.