NCIS & Leroy Jethro Gibbs

I am a big fan of the television series “NCIS” and have watched every single episode that has been released. There are 15 seasons and about 24 episodes in every reason and each episode is about 40 minutes long. You can do the math – the amount of time that I have spent watching this television series.

I love this series because i like the central characters, specifically, the larger than life character – Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

One of the reason I like him is because of his steadfast character, his loyalty & the loyalty that he inspires in his team (among his peers, bosses and reportees). I believe that there is a lot that we can learn from him about being a great manager & even a great human being.

As it turns out, there are a lot of fans of Gibbs around the world. THere are fan websites, fan wiki pages, pinterest boards and discussion forums on what he does and his rules (51 of them).

Living by our own Rules

I think that all of us benefit from learning from Gibbs. Each one of us need to explore and decide the rules that will define how we live. Then live by those rules. Share these rules with people around us.

This will clarify what is important for us and how we will react to any given situation and they can understand why we reacted to a situation given our rules.

This also informs the team members about how we would expect them to react in a situation even if we are not around.

One specific rule that i really like and is relevant for entrepreneurs is Rule #51. This rule states:

Sometimes You Are Wrong!

As entrepreneurs, we are wired to be confident about ourselves and subsequently about our ideas. There are times when we can get too influenced by our very own confidence that we stop seeing the reality. It is important to have this confidence and an alternate reality that we are trying to create, there are sometimes when we are wrong. The faster we realise and accept that we are wrong in this scenario can be the difference between success and disaster.

So, while, most of the times, we need to back ourselves, but at the same time we need to put in place mechanisms and check points to catch ourselves when we are wrong. A few ways that we can do this could be by

• Accountability Partners: Having accountability partners tell us when we are wrong. We need to always have people around us who are never afraid to tell us when we are wrong. This could be our spouses, business partners or even certain friends/employees. It is even better if we ask them to play this role in advance.
• Hiring coaches: We can hire external coaches who can help us out in this regard. They can keep us honest and tell us the bitter truth when we need to hear them.

My Rules:

1. Be Healthy (Physically, Financially, Emotionally, Spiritually & Intellectually)
2. Be fiercely curious
3. Be consistent & persistent
4. Do work that matters (to me)
5. Dont Judge others. To each his own!
6. There is always a way out of any situation
7. Better to Apologize than to wait for permission
8. Experiment
9. Keep things simple
10. Instead of “Either / Or”, think “And”
11. Go for “10x”
12. Steal like an Artist
13. Impossible is nothing.
14. Slow Down
15. Remember Rule No 6 (Never take yourself so goddamn seriously)
16. Sometimes I am  are wrong!

Gibbs’ Rules:

You can find all of Gibbs’s rules here.

Your Rules?

So, what are your rules? Have you made your list? Have you shared it with your team? Do you live by your rules? If you have your’s, pls feel free to share them here with us. Publicly sharing your rules only helps you become accountable to them.