Are You Building a Championship Team?
Recently Rex Ryan, former NFL coach and current ESPN football analyst, spoke about the priorities of the Green Bay Packers’ yet-to-be-named new head coach. The team, with 5 wins, 7 losses and 1 tie has not performed to its potential and had suddenly fired long time coach, Mike McCarthy, without waiting until season’s end.
Ryan, known for his direct style, got right to the point: the new coach needs to not only have the right personnel but he needs the team to be committed to his philosophy and he needs the support of the community. Now everyone knows that this kind of commitment and support (including fan support) doesn’t come easily, especially for a losing team. (And, if you are reading this as a resident of northeastern Ohio, you definitely can appreciate this!)
What Coach Ryan was really talking about was creating a winning culture. Imagine that your sales team is struggling, losing more sales than winning them. Morale is low, there is some backbiting between the sales and service teams, and customers are complaining.
What do you, the leader, do? Your #1 priority must be to create a winning culture within which your entire team including sales, service, production, finance, human resources and customers can flourish. You are the one who sets the tone, establishes the mission, vision and values and consistently “waves the flag” to reinforce them not only with words but with actions that your team can emulate.
According to Jim Whitehurst, President and CEO of Red Hat, “an organizational culture is defined by how people inside the organization interact with each other. Culture is learned behavior — it’s not a byproduct of operations. It’s not an overlay. We create our organizational culture by the actions we take; not the other way around.”
So, if you want a team with a winning record or, even better, a World Championship team, start now to create a world class culture. And, please let me know if I can provide some coaching along your way to success.
