Building a Culture of Success: Lessons from Championship Teams
The Kansas City Chiefs just completed winning back to back Super Bowls. They have won three of the last four, and have been in at least the conference championship game for each of the last six years. It is an impressive feat in any environment, but especially in one as competitive as the National Football League. The New England Patriots, like them or not, have a similar story for much of the 2000s.
How teams like the Chiefs and Patriots achieve such a high level starts with the small things they do each day, not just the big plays they make in the important games. Listening to the players after their victories would indicate they make all the small things they do in practice, preparation, and the in-between moments matter as much as the big ones.
Everything we do results in some form of output or outcome. Most often in our retail environment, we use a report of some type to measure our results, but we all know there is more to the story than the final number we see (after the fact) on a report.
“We are all in this together” is a common rallying call that connects the dots. Then everyone can also take part in celebrating or the recognition coming from a successful outcome. Whether they directly or indirectly influenced the results, everyone can celebrate the team win. The leader helps each team member to see the role they played as a part of the success and can reinforce the positive actions they contributed.
At the leadership level, the reality may be they did very little of the actual work it took to create the success. A District Manager doesn’t make every sale in every store each day. The Regional Leader is not talking to the Store Managers on a day-to-day basis. So the measure for leaders would be, “look what my people achieved.” I did very little of the work. However, I created an environment allowing others to flourish. I helped this individual or these team members when times were tough and inspired them to carry forward. Everyone, including the leaders, plays a role in creating and thus celebrating the winning results.
There are many pieces that must come together to generate successful outcomes. There is planning that must occur. Then there is the execution that must happen to bring the plan to life. Course corrections may occur when unexpected obstacles appear. Each of these creates small moments of success. Each is important in the ultimate outcome, but can easily get lost in the moment.
In order to generate a culture for winning we need to celebrate more than the final outcomes. Rather, we should spend more time appreciating the little victories and successful navigation of the minor hurdles crossed along the way. Those seemingly small wins along the way are what will collectively make the difference in the end — recognizing these events when and as they happen will provide the fuel necessary for the longer-term. These are the defining moments for leaders that create engagement and the culture that chooses to find success over and over.
Much like the Chiefs, the best cultures celebrate the successes along the way and create an environment for those small wins to lead to even more significant outcomes. This ongoing cycle of the small win, celebrate, coaching, learning, small win is what will continually move you ahead and upward. Start recognizing the little things now and you too will realize the biggest of rewards.
How will you recognize and celebrate the small victories along the way?
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Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash