Dr. Preston Cline, Dr. Dan Dworkis, Dr. Art Finch and Harry Moffit of the Mission Critical Team Institute share research and explore the questions vexing the most elite teams in the world, from Special Operations soldiers to Firefighters, from Trauma Medics to Professional Athletes, and from Astronauts to Tactical Law Enforcement.
Sara (Mills) Kerr is a firefighter with Fire and Rescue New South Wales and a PhD candidate at the University of Newcastle, researching the trustworthiness of AI-generated information in disaster and emergency management decision-making. Before the fire service, she worked as an e-commerce data analyst, until Australia's 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires redirected her path. Instead of returning to her normal work, she entered the Emergency Services Academy. Harry and Sara talk about what fourteen weeks at the Academy built in her, and what it didn't. They get into why "overthinking" is often mislabeled: vigilance is a protective mechanism, not a weakness, and only becomes a problem when it overwhelms rather than informs. That gap between training and readiness eventually pointed Sara toward research into AI and disaster management, and eventually the PhD. AI, in her framing, is a cognitive aid that should enhance operator judgment, never replace it. She's also recruiting participants for that research - anyone using AI operationally in Australian disaster and emergency management, frontline or otherwise is invited to reach out to Harry for a connection: harry@missioncti.com. Their conversation also covered how why diversity strengthens a team's shared operating picture, and Sara walks through her Inner Command framework she built out of her own early struggles and the framework's 5 C's: Calm, Control, Competence, Confidence, Courage. Advice for Monday: weaponize your vigilance, and give yourself credit for what you do well. If you found value in this discussion, the best way to support our work and stay up to date on future episodes is to subscribe and leave us a quick rating or review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear these conversations.
A few years ago, senior FBI SWAT team leader Matt Hoffman called Preston after a fatal operation. To assist the team in working through the loss, Preston and Matt used a process that went beyond the standard after-action review by incorporating narrative inquiry. The goal was to let a fractured team's story come back together before anyone examined what went wrong, rather than extracting lessons first. Later, Preston worked with Matt and Dr. Angus Fletcher — Professor and Director of the Leadership Initiative at Ohio State's Fisher College of Business — to write up what they learned. Their paper, " A Better Approach to After-Action Reviews ," was published in Harvard Business Review. This summer Matt and Angus joined Preston to discuss Angus's research, why traditional AARs work when they're done right, and narrative competence over narrative allegiance. The three of them dig into why a story lands in the brain differently than a data point does, why the breakfast that follows a hard AAR isn't a throwaway ritual but an active repair, and why naming the discomfort in the room, not necessarily fixing it, is often the whole job of a leader. Advice for Monday: stop chasing lessons learned first. Get the full story. The lessons will surface on their own. If you found value in this discussion, the best way to support our work and stay up to date on future episodes is to subscribe and leave us a quick rating or review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear these conversations.
Christine Stead is the CEO of ELSO: the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization. ELSO is the premier global nonprofit for ECMO and ECLS, connecting providers, researchers, and regulatory agencies across 66 countries and nearly 800 contributing centers worldwide. Earlier this year, Dan's conversation with Thomas Preston explored trust and communication at the bedside. They discussed what it takes for a single ECMO team to function in a single room under pressure. On this Teamcast, released in collaboration with The Emergency Mind Podcast , Christine joins Dan to talk about how ELSO held the field together during COVID: a live registry built in weeks, a global capacity map, real-time coordination running patient-by-patient across time zones. Getting information out mattered more than getting it perfect, because withholding it presented a different kind of risk. They also get into ELSO's founding philosophy, the systems-of-systems challenge in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, and an upcoming center certification program that has been two years in the making. If you find this episode useful, the best way to support the work is to subscribe and leave a quick rating or review.
This conversation originally aired December 6, 2022. Dr. Michael Platt is a Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Marketing at the University of Pennsylvania and holds joint appointments at the Perelman School of Medicine, the School of Arts and Sciences, and the Wharton School. He is the founder of the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative and the author of The Leader's Brain . Preston and Michael work through the neuroscience underneath three questions: Why do emotional interventions sometimes produce learning, and sometimes just produce resentment? What does it actually mean to have a "social brain," and what happens to it when you cut people off from each other? And what are the neurological precursors to the thing teams call flow? Listen to learn the marble metaphor for habit and development, the default mode network as a muscle that atrophies without boredom, the role of synchrony in what rowers call "swing," and a standing challenge to the introverts in the audience (go talk to your neighbors). Michael's closing recommendations are three things most likely to keep your brain and your team's brains healthy under pressure.
We're continuing our conversation on human performance by asking why some performers keep improving under pressure while others hit a ceiling. One of the most powerful answers is curiosity. In this Teamcast, released in partnership with The Emergency Mind Podcast , Dan talks with Marius Aleksa, a performance advisor who has coached elite performers across professional baseball, special operations, medicine, and high-level athletics. Together, they explore how curiosity helps people recognize their strengths, uncover hidden leverage points, and build the kind of solid foundation that supports growth at the edge of their ability.
Andy Walshe has spent his career at the frontier of human performance, from Australia's post-Sydney Games high-performance system, through a decade at Red Bull, to his current work with Liminal Collective across elite sport, government programs, and executive development. His assessment of where the field actually stands: about a ten out of a hundred. Harry and Andy dig into what that means. They cover the challenge of building operator-centered performance programs inside organizations still stuck on the basics; why character and creativity are the two most important elements most programs underweight; and how the rise of AI is forcing a reckoning with what makes humans irreplaceable. Andy's term for it is Imagineering: the capacity to generate the questions worth asking, not just consume the answers the machine provides. They close on the cognitive warrior as the emerging frontier: why cyber and analyst communities, starting from scratch, may end up leading the DOD in human performance, and what Monday could look like for anyone building high performance programming. If you find value in this discussion, the best way to support our work is to subscribe and leave a quick rating or review — it helps us reach the teams that need to hear these conversations most.
Six years ago this week, on May 7, 2020, we released our first Teamcast on Residue . In that episode, Preston shared a conversation with Coleman Ruiz on the psychological and emotional substance left behind after choosing the hard path. The episode, and the paper that grew out of it , traveled further than we expected. Eight operators have since told us that paper is the reason they are still here. In 2018, at a Wounded Warriors event in Alexandria, Tom Hardy introduced the idea of Residue to Preston. Preston then turned to FDNY Chief David Morkal, who pointed him toward Denis Leary. Denis's response became an essential part of MCTI's paper. Six years later, this is the first time Preston and Denis have actually talked in person. They get into what method actors and mission critical operators share, the difference between trauma and burden, dark humor as survival, the Clark Kent–at-the-barbecue experience, and why music does the work that nothing else quite does, as evidenced by Denis singing in the car on the way to the recording. Denis's response to our Monday morning question is in there, too. If this conversation is useful, the best way to support our work is to subscribe and leave a quick rating or review. It helps us reach the people who need to hear it most.
What do theater, crisis response, military service, and social work have in common? More than you might guess. Adam Milano, faculty at UNC's School of Social Work, a military veteran, and theater-trained performer, joins Dan Dworkis to discuss how high-performance teamwork under pressure looks a lot like ensemble art. In this episode: You can't turn off the human part — and you shouldn't Invisible excellence: the best work goes unnoticed Your job is to make your teammates look brilliant Your third emergency today is someone else's first This conversation was released in partnership with The Emergency Mind Podcast and originally aired on February 16, 2026. If this conversation was useful, the best thing you can do is subscribe and leave a quick rating or review — it helps us reach the teams that need to hear these conversations most.
Ceci Craft has worked inside two of the most demanding performance cultures in the world — Army Special Operations and Major League Baseball. She's currently the Philadelphia Phillies' Director of Mental Performance, Life Skills, and Education, leading a staff of seven coaches across their MLB affiliates and the organization's academy in the Dominican Republic. When she made the move from working with Operators to working in baseball, she thought she had her bearings -- "No one's being shot at, and no one's died, so I'm fine. " -- It took her a while to recalibrate her perspective from the special ops world and to recognize that losses in the athletic world are different kinds of losses, but still real ones. Preston and Ceci dig into the gap between how mental performance practitioners are trained and what the job actually requires — the ethical conundrums no ethics course prepares you for, the difference between a clinical model built on client readiness and a performance context that operates on its own timeline, and why "coach, don't profess" is harder to practice than it sounds. They use imagery as a case study — exploring habituation, audience fit, and how to teach live skills more effectively. They examine what Ceci calls "healthy versus junk food confidence": the difference between confidence that holds up versus confidence that collapses under real pressure. And they close with one of the more honest conversations about identity and transition: what it actually costs to walk out of a high-performance tribe, and what helps. If this conversation is useful, the best way to support our work is to subscribe and leave a rating or review. It helps us reach the people who need these discussions.
To celebrate NASA’s Artemis II test flight, scheduled for launch on Wednesday, April 1st, we're re-casting Preston's conversation with NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman from May 2023. The Artemis II test flight will be crewed by Commander Reid, Pilot Victor Glover, Astronaut Christina Koch, and Canadian Astronaut Jeremy Hansen for the 10-day lunar flyby mission, which will test the Orion spacecraft's life-support systems for the first time with humans aboard. In this Teamcast episode, originally aired on May 24, 2023, Preston and Reid discuss the transition from extensive training to real operations and why it is inevitably chaotic in mission critical work. Wiseman describes arriving on the ISS after four years of training and initially feeling “useless,” emphasizing mastery and learning rapidly rather than expecting perfection. They explore selection for “rate of learning,” humility, mentorship, shared situational awareness across small crews, and mission control. They also address human-machine automation, the need for human override, the integration of new team members, and curriculum elements such as small-team work in unpredictable natural environments, repeated rehearsals with failures, and getting comfortable being uncomfortable. Commander Reid Wiseman is an American astronaut, engineer, and naval aviator. He served as Chief of the Astronaut Office until November 14, 2022. He was a member of the Expedition 40/41 crew, which launched to the International Space Station on May 28, 2014, and returned on November 10, 2014. If you find value in this discussion, the best way to support our work and stay up to date on future episodes is to subscribe and leave us a quick rating or review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear these conversations.
This week’s Recast is from Oct 2021. The episode explores how high-pressure performers can train, maintain, and recover their mental skills, with emphasis on using the right tools in the right way and avoiding unqualified “backyard” approaches. Host Harry Moffitt speaks with performance psychologist and cognitive coach Paddy Steinfort, who has worked with elite sports teams like the Philadelphia Eagles, Blue Jays, and 76ers. Paddy draws on his personal athletic experience and his education in psychology to discuss how people can prepare for demanding environments, remain effective when pressure rises, and build sustainable habits over time. Paddy and Harry examine how to place attention on the right cues, how to execute the right actions despite discomfort, and how routines can become superstition-driven avoidance. They also discuss how coaches and organizations can better support psychological performance. The two provide practical ways to manage ongoing stress, strengthen individual and group processes, and keep progressing toward long-term goals. If you find value in this discussion, the best way to support our work and stay up to date on future episodes is to subscribe and leave us a quick rating or review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear these conversations.
In this episode of the Teamcast, Dr. Preston Cline and Dr. Art Finch discuss MCTI's most recent paper, “The Fourth Generation of Military Special Operations Selection and Assessment". Thanks to our collaborative inquiry community, we've received feedback and observations from special operations team members across the Five Eyes. Preston and Art reflect on that feedback and contrast the historical “psychological model” with rites-of-passage approaches. They cover the effort to sustain force numbers while still selecting the cognitively diverse candidates teams need. They discuss the balance between tacit knowledge and psychological science, and the need to avoid pendulum swings where either side dominates. You'll also hear what causes programs to erode unless leaders manage change intentionally. Read and download the mentioned paper here: https://missioncti.com/resources/ If you find value in this discussion, the best way to support our work and stay up to date on future episodes is to subscribe and leave us a quick rating or review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear these conversations.
This week’s Recast is from April 2020. Why This Episode Matters Now: In 2022, the war in Ukraine revealed something our partners had been experiencing but we hadn't fully articulated: the traditional model of intact, homogeneous teams wasn't sufficient for the emerging operational environment. Individuals with diverse expertise, geography, language, and allegiances needed to rapidly converge into what we call Tactical Swarms —heterogeneous cross-functional units that form, solve emergent problems, and disperse. Our recent white paper, The Fourth Generation of Military Special Operations Selection & Assessment , explores this evolution in depth. But six years ago, Preston laid the foundational concepts in this conversation with Coleman. What the Research Shows: Many operators who excelled at teamwork —performing with known, homogeneous teams—struggled with teaming : the ability to rapidly build cohesion within heterogeneous groups. This episode examines why routine versus critical communication and field observations across special operations, emergency medicine, and other high-stakes environments. In this episode, Preston and Coleman describe how tactical swarms and X teams differ from traditional team structures, and they distinguish between routine and critical communication and when teams must shift between them. Recent Research: Cline, P.B. (2026). The Fourth Generation of Military Special Operations Selection Assessment: A Community of Praxis [White paper]. Mission Critical Team Institute. DOI 10.13140/RG.2.2.28255.73121. https://missioncti.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/The-Fourth-Generation-of-Military-Special-Operations-Selection-Assessment_Final_2-Feb-26.pdf Falk, D., Cline, P., Donegan, D., & Mehta, S. (2023). A Novel Framework for Routine Versus Critical Communication in Surgical Education—Don’t Take It Personally. Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 31 (3), 115–121. https://doi.org/10.5435/JAAOS-D-22-00912 https://missioncti.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/FINAL-A-Novel-Framework-for-Routine-Versus-Critical.pdf If you find value in this discussion, the best way to support our work and stay up to date on future episodes is to subscribe and leave us a quick rating or review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear these conversations. This episode contains a term that may be offensive; it is used to describe gendered communication dynamics. We have included it to accurately represent the event, and it is intended for educational purposes only.
When a patient's heart or lungs fail, ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) technology can keep them alive—but only if the team operating it works flawlessly under pressure. In this episode, Thomas Preston draws on over 30 years of experience in cardiopulmonary care to reveal what it takes to manage these life-sustaining systems. This Teamcast episode covers the specialized roles within ECMO teams, the critical relationship between perfusionists and other medical staff, and strategies for navigating crisis moments when seconds matter. Thomas discusses how trust, constant vigilance, and ongoing training form the foundation of successful outcomes in some of medicine's most intense situations. If you value this discussion, the best way to support our work and stay up to date on future episodes is to subscribe and leave us a quick rating or review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear these conversations.
What happens when life-and-death decisions must be made by a team rather than an individual? In this episode, Dr. Mark Ramzy — cardiothoracic intensivist, emergency physician, and Co-Editor-in-Chief of REBEL EM — joins Dan to explore how teams think, decide, and act under pressure inside the ICU. If you value this discussion, the best way to support our work and stay up to date on future episodes is to subscribe and leave us a quick rating or review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear these conversations.
In this episode, Preston discusses mission critical teams with Dr. Dawn Kernagis, the Scientific Director at DEEP. DEEP is an extreme environment technology and exploration organization with a mission to "Make Humans Aquatic." They explore the complexities and dynamics of individuals and teams working in undersea habitats and submersible systems. Dawn shares insights from her extensive experience, including participation in NASA's Extreme Environment Mission Operation (NEMO) project as a crew member for mission 21 and research on optimizing human performance under pressure. Preston and Dawn cover an array of topics, including the importance of team cohesion, situational awareness, and the psychological and physiological challenges these teams face. Dawn also emphasizes the critical role of effective communication and leadership in maintaining team safety and performance. The episode concludes with practical advice for building and managing resilient, high-functioning teams. If you value this discussion, the best way to support our work and stay up to date on future episodes is to subscribe and leave us a quick rating or review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear these conversations.
This week’s episode is a Recast as we review a fundamental conversation between Preston and Coleman Ruiz (MCTI’s co-founder and former Director of Performance) on the concept of "Residue"—the psychological and emotional substance left behind after immersion in high-stakes environments. As we approach the end of the year, we are revisiting this episode to help our listeners navigate the transition from one year to the next and to continue or begin a ritual of reflection. Coleman and Preston explore how the "residue" of our experiences is neither good nor bad, but rather a byproduct that must be processed. Without intentional routines, this residue can "harden," inhibiting our ability to move into a new year with clarity. The conversation covers various aspects of professional and personal life, including the impact of extreme experiences, the importance of intentionality and self-compassion, and the value of a 'third thing' to help balance life. This thought-provoking discussion is essential for anyone involved in mission critical fields, as it emphasizes the need for better tools and self-awareness to manage the residue of intense experiences. Whether you are coming off a high-intensity deployment or simply looking to reset after a demanding year, this episode offers a framework to help you leverage your past to build a more resilient self. Find the featured paper on our website: https://missioncti.com/resources/ If you value this discussion, the best way to support our work and stay up to date on future episodes is to subscribe and leave us a quick rating or review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear these conversations.
In this episode, our Chief Medical Officer Dan Dworkis works with Alex Hodson, a seasoned critical care physician assistant, to explore the dynamics of high-functioning multi-professional healthcare teams, the training pipeline for APPs, and the importance of feedback and teamwork across disciplines. Gain insights into the challenges and rewards of working in high-stress environments and understand how multidisciplinary and multi-professional collaboration shapes effective patient care.
This week, we’re revisiting a conversation between Preston and Dr. Art Finch, a veteran psychologist from the US Special Operations Command. This episode (previously published in 2020) covers the unique psychological profiles of mission critical teams. Channel a beginner's mind and re-explore why some individuals choose the extraordinary path of high-risk, immersive environments while others opt for more conventional lives. Listen to Art share his experiences and insights from working with special operations units, highlighting the exceptional intelligence, low anxiety, and emotional compartmentalization abilities of operators. Consider the impact of these traits on personal relationships and daily functioning, offering valuable perspectives for both operators and their families, foundational knowledge for the recent Teamcast and accompanying workbook “On Coming Home”. The episode also touches on the challenges of transitioning back to civilian life and the importance of understanding and leveraging one's unique cognitive and emotional strengths. If you find value in this discussion, the best way to support our work and stay up-to-date with future episodes is to subscribe and leave us a quick rating or review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear these conversations.
In today’s Teamcast, Harry and Martin Jones discuss the role of psychologists as servants in high-performance environments, the rule of thirds in learning, psychological performance and speed cameras, and how high-quality sleep is still a work in progress and is not the last thing we do at night, but the first thing we do in our day. Martin is a sport and exercise psychologist. He is also a sleep specialist with over 20 years of experience supporting coaches, performance directors, elite athletes, military personnel, business leaders, and recording artists. He holds postgraduate degrees in sport psychology from Loughborough University and sleep medicine from the University of Oxford. Martin has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers and taught at universities in the UK and Canada. He holds an honorary professorial position at Hartbury University and is the creator and co-host of the Optimising Human Performance podcast. Check out Martin’s own podcast – Optimising Human Performance – at https://www.ophp.co.uk/ . If you find value in this discussion, the best way to support our work and stay up-to-date with future episodes is to subscribe and leave us a quick rating or review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear these conversations.
