What Game Are You Coaching?

You find out, “Life is a game of inches.” Never mind football.

Whatever game you’re playing, whatever game you’re coaching, it is a game of little differences.

I’m hearing how tough it is to win right now. I’m sure we’re all hearing and seeing it and, even if we aren’t experiencing it, we’re still feeling the cold dread of wondering “am I up for the challenge.”

It’s a daunting opponent, fear. It can make our brains seize up and our guts turn to water. It can bring about certain failure without ever striking a blow. Often our initial response to fear is to isolate ourselves. It’s the “everyman for himself” mentality. Looking out for #1 becomes our #1 priority.

And for many people it isn’t a “what if” challenge but a “right now” challenge. They are facing loss of their job, lack of buying power, failing relationships or illness.

But the truth is that no matter the opponent it takes a team that lives by the “all for one and one for all” mentality to win. None of us have to be in this game alone.

“Either we heal now as team or we will die as individuals.”

Whether your team is a small group, a community, a company, a country or an entire world.

What opponent are you facing?

Who is on your team?

Are you coaching them to win as a team or die as individuals?

“Now, what are you going to do?”

Roadblocks, Speed Bumps and Stepping Stones

So you’re barreling down the Career Super Highway and, oops, what is that you see on your horizon? A roadblock? A speed bump? A warning sign? A detour? Or maybe just a helpful stepping stone to bridge your way between where you are and where you want to go?

We’ve all had those days, sometimes they turn into weeks, when every step we take seems to lead to one more roadblock. We make plans, they fall through. We set goals and something gets in the way. We worry about things like the stock market, the job market, the farmer’s market and the price of eggs in China. (Okay, I just made those last two up but ‘I’ll bet someone somewhere is worried about them.)

So how do you handle mysterious things that get in your path? Do you come to a screeching halt and think “I’m safe where I am so maybe I’ll just pull over right here and hang tight until that thing goes away”? That’s what I’m seeing a lot of individuals and companies trying to do right now; hunker down, ride it out, wait and see. Well that’s a sure way to stall your career or your business but it is not a sure way to still have a career or business next year or even next month.

Or do you think “well it’s going to be rough so I’d better just step on the gas and try to get ahead of the pack”? Determination is a wonderful attribute but if it really was a roadblock you can do a lot of damage when you hit it and there just may have been a reason it was there.

Or maybe you are a true navigator, you get out your map, your spyglass and your compass and take stock of the situation. You consult with your team and the experts. You know that the thing on your horizon might be a brick wall but it might also be an opportunity. It might mean a detour, but the detour might take you somewhere you needed to go and would have never visited if your way hadn’t been blocked. It’s all a matter of perspective.

The economy is shifting the market. Maybe this is the ideal time to explore new markets, add new services and focus on convenience and customer service.
You just lost a key team member. Maybe this is the ideal time to restructure your strategy, evaluate your remaining team members, train new talent, reassign responsibilities, promote someone who has long deserved the chance to prove themselves. Team building is more than just hiring to replace a terminating employee, it's getting the right people in the right positions and giving them the resources to grow.
Advertising dollars are tight. Maybe now is the time to consider new tactics, try a guerrilla approach, create advertising alliances with complimentary businesses, explore email and text to get your message to your market, do something none of your competitors are doing, hone your message and carve a deeper niche.

Not to be too Pollyannaish, but most set backs also represent opportunities. And the people who have the perspective and perseverance to find the opportunities are the ones who create so much wealth and happiness we often look them and think “wow, how did she get so lucky?” We create our own luck, in the choices we make, the people we surround ourselves with, the resources we tap into, the beliefs we allow to rule our thoughts and our decisions. How we create success out of crisis is part of our mental and emotional programming and ultimately we control that. Crisis doesn’t make or break a person; it reveals their inner strength and vision.

Or to quote Scottish writer Allan K. Chalmers, “Crises redefine life. In them you discover who you are.” Follow that with a quote from another wise man, Epictetus, who said, “First say to yourself what you would be; then do what you have to do.”

Okay, so there’s a bump in the road on your horizon, who will you be and what will you do?

Being Scared Isn't Being Motivated

As motivational techniques go, fear is highly overrated. And yet, it's a trap most people have fallen into at one time or another. We've seen parents, managers, even entire governments try the "if you are frightened enough of the consequences you'll be motivated to do the right thing" trap.

I once sat on a discussion panel with a consultant who told the audience that she thought the number one value she she provided to her clients was to keep the employees on their toes and "put a little fear into them". I told the audience I thought the number one value I provided was to be a resource for the employees to make sure they developed competence and confidence and never had to be afraid of failure. You can imagine how disheartening it was to realize that a large percentage of the managers and employers in the room thought that hiring HER would make their lives easier.

I was, therefore, pretty disappointed in myself when I recently commented to a client that I felt some of the "dis sync" she was having with her ops manager was that this manager was "more afraid of the team than she is of her boss." Right diagnosis, WRONG terminology. My bad.

And I'm happy to say that when my client asked "so what do I do to make her scared of me?" she was (mostly) kidding. Neither of us would want anyone on her team to be afraid of anything because fear of consequences doesn't motivate anyone to do anything more than just enough to avoid the consequences.

And that was exactly what we were seeing in this manager; she was doing what she could to avoid certain consequences, but she was more motivated to avoid the consequences of making anyone on the team unhappy with her than she was to avoid the consequences of not meeting the business objectives. She was asking for increased budgets, pushing back on timelines and making excuses for work from herself and the team that wasn't up to standard. The employees, motivated by a fear of failure and finding an advocate in the manager, were campaigning for a redefinition of success. And the employer, who had a fear of being unreasonable and losing employees, was torn between accepting the lowering of standards and demanding what she knew was essential to provide good value to her customers.

If you've read Patrick Lencioni's The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, you've already guessed that this team was dysfunctional in all five areas. They didn't trust each other enough to have conflict, in fact, the manager and the employer were both more scared of conflict with the team than they were of not meeting their objectives. They weren't committed to their goals, in fact the buy in for their goals was so low that everyone was trying to negotiate a new definition for attaining them. Accountability was so low that everyone pointed to everyone else as the reason things weren't getting done and the manager was pointing to the employer as the person setting unreasonable goals. So of course, no one was focused on team outcomes, they were too busy trying to protect their backsides.

Did I just overstate the diagnosis? Maybe, as with any team some days are better than others and some players better than others on any given day. But if you looked at the entire "season" that pretty well describes why they didn't have a winning record.

In this equation everyone was motivated to do what they were doing by a fear of consequences so ALL of them were doing only what was necessary to avoid those consequences. Fear was, in fact, blocking their ability to be truly motivated toward excellence and growth. They were no longer striving to succeed, they were desperately trying not to fail.

To determine if you are building a motivated team ask yourself "what are they striving toward?" If, in fact, they are working harder to "try to avoid" than they are "striving toward" you don't yet have a motivated team, you have a lot of scared individuals.

Which Would You Rather?

I once had a friend who liked to play a game she called “which would you rather?” It went like this; Jan would give you two choices and you had to choose one and tell her why you would make that choice.

So she would greet you by asking, “Which would you rather – have to chew broken glass or have a needle poked in your eye?”

Did I mention that Jan and I met doing community theatre where the more bizarrely thought provoking the question the more seriously it would be taken? I’ve since lost track of Jan (if you’re out there girl I’d love to hear from you) but the “which would you rather” phrase still puts a goofy grin on my face.

While Jan delighted in coming up with equally unappealing activities, we quite often feel we must choose between equally desirable or even necessary options. “Should I opt for ordering the appetizer or the desert?” (Or have both on the theory that you only live once?) “Should I hire the candidate with the best experience or the one with the most enthusiasm?” (For more on resolving that dilemma read the May 30 post; “How Much Experience Should You Hire?”)

Here’s another dilemma that impacts everything from employee selection to business culture– which would you rather, dependability or innovation?

Do you need someone who will predictably and consistently maintain status quo? Is your culture about stability and steady growth? Or should you be looking for people who will innovate change, who will foster a culture of being open to every possibility?

Dependability breeds commitment just as innovation breeds excitement.

What business can prosper without commitment, from their employees, their clients and their community? But what business can prosper without excitement, about their services, their products and their brand?

Of course, every business needs both commitment and excitement. So every business needs dependability and innovation. The key is to not only hire the right people and put them in the right roles, but to also insure that everyone in your organization fully embraces the importance of both roles and honors what the other players contribute to making sure you never have to play the “which would you rather” game.

I use the Kolbe A index to tell me how I can expect a team member to take action - by stabilizing and maintaining systems or by innovating new solutions - and put together workshops to explore and develop synergy in teams. The Kolbe MO is only one of three aspects that should be taken into consideration when selecting an employee for any role, but I find it to be the most predictive.

How do you make sure you aren’t choosing between commitment and excitement? Are you putting people in roles where they can do what they do naturally, whether that is by creating and maintaining dependable systems or innovating new solutions? Does your company culture embrace both or are you playing the “which would you rather” game?