As I read the
headlines today about March Madness – there are coaches and sportscasters
(pardon the term) whining about “snubs” and being
“overlooked”. Everyone understands heading into the college basketball season
that winning gets you to the big prize. Winning. Not Charlie Sheen
“winning”, but sports are very clear about who wins and who loses. Losing
is hard, but every game has a loser (assuming no ties, cancels, etc.).
I am thinking back to my coaching days AND to all the traits of
leadership we all learn about. Sometimes being a good coach or leader is
accepting a loss, evaluating why and moving forward. Praise the effort,
but understand the result.
Don’t get me
wrong, it is crushing for some of these athletes who thought their team would
make the tournament, but it is also the role of the coach to use this as a life
lesson, versus complaining and looking outside his team for reasons why they
were not selected. 64 (actually 68) teams make the tournament.
SIXTY-FOUR! So you need to be one of the Top 64 out of
approximately 350 teams. That is almost 20%.
An example of
what I read - a team that was bumped because it had two losses to their respective tourney champ and also lost in the
regular-season finale (and one other late season game in the last week of the
season) should step back and evaluate FOUR losses in the closing weeks before
the selection happened. Much like in business, performance helps
determine our path. It hurts when we are not selected (for the tourney,
or a promotion), but there are very often some tangible reasons why (albeit
hard to swallow at the time). The
definition of effort: a determined attempt. The
definition of result: a consequence, effect, or outcome of something.
You can see and measure results. You can never truly measure someone’s level of
effort.
I
am not taking a James Harrison stand here. Not everyone gets a
trophy in James Harrison's house, as the Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker
wrote on Instagram. Harrison took away his kids' participation trophies
because he wants them to "EARN a real trophy." His quote, “I came home to find out that my boys
received two trophies for nothing, participation trophies! While I am very
proud of my boys for everything they do and will encourage them till the day I
die, these trophies will be given back until they EARN a real trophy. I’m sorry
I’m not sorry for believing that everything in life should be earned and I’m
not about to raise two boys to be men by making them believe that they are
entitled to something just because they tried their best…cause sometimes your
best is not enough, and that should drive you to want to do better…not cry and
whine until somebody gives you something to shut u up and keep you happy.”
Without question, we are going to react emotionally if
we get passed up on a promotion (or team selection) and that’s okay — it’s
natural. I’ve worked in human resources for almost three decades and I’ve seen
every kind of emotional reaction you can imagine when employees don’t get that
coveted promotion. And guess what - I’m not immune either from a
reaction. I have been passed over many times. It hurts. But
after a bit of cooling off and self-reflection, I realized I had some things to
improve upon to be promoted (see my last post – “Where do I go?”).
· In my opinion, after a loss, one of the
most important things we can do is to focus on the effort (assuming
the team didn’t quit) – but we still need to maintain the focus on the
result. By positively reinforcing effort, you are essentially shaping
future behaviors that, in all likelihood, will lead to future success. The team
worked hard, the team prepared well, the team did not give up. Sometimes
our team is not the better team.
·
“Although
extraordinary effort doesn’t guarantee results, impressive results are rarely
achieved without extraordinary effort.” - Larry
Sternberg, Leadership Laboratory
It goes without
saying that losing is never fun or easy, but we lose in life more than we would
like to remember and we tend to make the experience more catastrophic than is
necessary (or accurate). Losing a big game can sting, but is it the end
of the world? Are there lessons to build on, or ways to use the
experience to come back stronger next year? Is there a reason we lost 4
times in the final weeks leading up to the tourney? What did we learn
from all this? Even when we lose, there are always important points
to build on for the future. What did the team do
right? Were there specific games that went well, or games where we were
more competitive? Great leaders or coaches find those moments and use
them to build positively for the future. "What you measure is what gets accomplished", said CEO Gordon
Bethune.
·
· This is a great opportunity to teach the
team to develop a short memory for losing. Great teams
have incredibly short memories, and instead channel their focus and motivation
toward the next season, next practice, or game. This is not
something we are born with, but instead it is something we develop over
time that allows us to learn from our previous failures.
·
· Finally, have we sat down with the team
and asked for their input. I watch many coaches and business
leaders out there and shake my head at their one-way communication, but when
people (in this case, the team) are solicited and encouraged to share their
thoughts and perspectives, they often begin to take even more ownership of
their experience. They will buy in to where they need to adjust and move
forward. This perceived democracy does not imply that the coach or leader
should sit back and allow the team to take over in the film room or when
looking at ways for improving in the future, but instead suggests that we find
that delicate balance between our own direction and thoughts from the
team.
The sad reality is that it's great to
see an employee giving his or her best on a project, but it's all for naught if
you aren't getting the right results. Effort is one of those things that a lot
of young employees are confused by — how can they be faulted if they didn't get
the results that were expected of them when they put in 130% of their effort?
“I worked so hard”, they say. If you are a sales company and
they did not bring in revenue, how do you pay the bills? Welcome to the
real world folks ... a world where effort is great, but it will always play a
back seat to results. A tough balance in life, but the reality of the
world we live in. Learn from losing, make yourself stronger and go win
the next battle. Understand and embrace losing for what it is – one of
our many life lessons that makes us all better.
“All the so-called “secrets of
success” will not work unless you do.” – Unknown. There is value in losing, understand the changes
needed to be made and focus on winning (not whining).
Together. We. Win.
Dave Harmon
People Division
“Kindness is Currency”
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/davidharmonhr
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