Beyond ‘good to go': Spotting team limits in tough conditions

When the team is working in extreme conditions (cold, heat, fatigue), and we ask how they are doing, we only get one answer: “Good to go!” This is rarely a helpful answer.

I heard a debrief once about a team in the southern US who were at a hostage call for an extended duration in blistering heat. Every time the commander checked in with them, he got the same answer. “We’re good!”

Eventually, they called in a replacement team. They had to literally peel folks out of their positions. One officer went to the hospital from heat stroke, and others took hours to recover on IVs. They were nowhere near “good to go,” and would not have been able to mount an effective rescue in that condition.

At a recent SWAT Commander Course, we were discussing how leaders need to recognize the “we’re good” answer as a statement about the team’s attitude, and not necessarily an accurate self-assessment of abilities.

Some things we do to address this on our team:

1. We look at communicating limitations as a way to provide the commander of information they need to make decisions. If the environmental conditions are eroding capabilities, then the commander needs to know that so they can decide the pace of interventions. Saying something like, “We’re good for another two hours, and then we will have to rotate people off to warm up, but that will deplete our containment and increase the chance of the suspect escaping” provides a ton of useful information to the commander.
2. We have a culture where asking for help is encouraged. This goes to the core of humility. Someone who doesn’t want to ask for help will have difficulty operating in tough situations that you just can’t do by yourself. I find people who are willing to admit their limitations are more coachable and, as a result, will achieve much higher performance over the long term than a team member who doesn’t want to admit where they have limitations.
3. We watch for “escalation of commitment,” which can take you past the point of no return. For example, if getting a relief team takes 3 hours to get on scene, then you need to ask for help 3 hours before you actually need it.

But how many times do we think “Nah, this will be over in 3 hours.” And then say that again in 3 hours time, and again in 3 hours time. Now you’ve blown way past your turn over time and you still have to wait 3 hours from the time you make the call. All because you didn’t want to risk calling for help and then having to cancel the request.