Category: Leadership

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Keep Churning

A coaching axiom in sports is to always play through the whistle. You see this all the time in football: a running back is thwarted at the line of scrimmage, yet keep his legs churning as the linemen gain traction and forward motion plunges him into the end zone. Meanwhile, frustrated defenders plead with the officials…having ‘Why didn’t you blow the play dead?’ looks on their faces.

The last many months have drained your emotional (and perhaps financial) resources. Your team is dragging, having picked up the workload of departed peers. The grind and frustrations of ‘Just when will this recession end and things pick up?’ are probably starting to wear on everyone.

Winston Churchill said it best some 68 years ago this month as England struggled to survive: “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large of petty – never give in…” Your role as leader is to keep everyone believing that tomorrow will be better. Perhaps it’s time for a pep talk?

If you need a story to share, consider the Minnesota Twins.

In September, they trailed the Tigers by seven games. A week ago, they were three back with four to play. Yet by winning 16 of their last 20, these never-say-never believers forced a one-game showdown for the division title. Yesterday, down three runs early, by two in the middle and a run late, they – fittingly – took the game to extra innings. They tied it for the third time after the Tigers scored a run in the top of the 10th, before finally winning on a base hit in the bottom of the 12th.

Whether the Twins have enough comebacks left to beat the New York Yankees in the first round of the postseason playoffs is to be determined; however, it’s clear Ron Gardenhire’s squad lives and breathes Churchill’s mantra. Your team would benefit by doing the same.

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Rah Rah Sis Boom Bah!

The college football season kicks off tonight, which means it’s only two days until my beloved Texas Longhorns – yes, I bleed Burnt Orange – take the field against Louisiana-Monroe. Now before you laugh at the Warhawks chances against the preseason #2 team in the nation, remember it was just two years ago they upset Alabama, and the Crimson Tide’s head coach is the highest paid in the game.

One trait Mack Brown, Nick Saban and other mega-millionaire coaches share is the ability to observe players, determine what each does best, and place them in positions to succeed. When Mack had Ricky Williams running to the Heisman, Texas was a power-I team. A few years later, they instituted the zone read to take advantage of Vince Young’s speed at quarterback. Last year, Colt McCoy set an all-time record for percentage completion. Three different superstars; three different approaches. Lots of wins.

Business leaders would do well to take a lesson from college football coaches. Instead of struggling to fit your team members into your preconceived views/job descriptoins of what they need to be doing, look at their talents and figure out what they would be best at doing. Then go and recruit others to fill in the gaps.

At Texas, the best athletes also perform on special teams. Thus, Sergio Kindle, a preseason All-America lineman, is on the punt block unit, and Jordan Shipley, who has 132 career pass receptions, returns punts and kickoffs. When you have talented people, find a way to keep them on the field doing what they do better than anyone else.

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Step Right Up

I played youth baseball for five seasons…and our record always seemed to be 8-8. My team lost the league finals in eighth grade basketball. Through all my years of competitive sports as a kid the only trophies I ever won were in Putt-Putt tournaments, where I had an adept skill of hitting the ball exactly where needed on the orange metal sideboards.

One of my awakenings as a parent was learning this is an ‘Every child gets a trophy’ and “Everybody’s a winner’ world. There is a box in our attic of more than 40 trophies ‘earned’ by our kids. The fact is not one is for winning a championship. Instead, they are for participation – acknowledgment that attending practices and showing up for games is somehow worthy of recognition.

There is a new law on the books here in Texas that a school district “may not require a classroom teacher to assign a minimum grade for an assignment.” Why was it necessary for our leaders to enact this legislation? Seems many districts had policies that set 50 as the lowest grade a student could receive, even if they failed to turn in an assignment or made 30 on an exam. Perhaps those in charge of education are recognizing that the by-product of No Child Left Behind Without A Trophy could be a generation without accountability. One that assumes everything always works out in the end, because they always reward me for just showing up.

I coached my son’s basketball team for six seasons, and the last two we lost the championship game. Some kids cried afterwards, saddened by coming up short for the second straight year. I didn’t know what to say. If I had it to do all over, here’s what I would tell them: “I’m proud of you for growing as a team each week. You listened, practiced hard and are a lot better than you were three months ago. You aren’t always going to win. That’s not how life is. Learn from this, and make changes that make you better.” That lesson would serve them better than some trophy that eventually ends up stored in the attic.

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