The Cost of Failure is Greater Than the Price of Success

You don't get any medals for trying something, you get medals for results. -- Bill Parcells

Reward learning, not results. -- Unknown

NFL stands for two things. The National Football League and Not For Long. The average NFL career is only 3.5 years. For an offensive play to be effective all 11 players must execute like a synchronized chorus line, almost to perfection. The same is true for the defense and special teams. The difference between winning and losing usually comes down to three or four plays. Football is played on a field that is 120 yards long, but games are won and lost by an inch here and an inch there. The difference between a running back turning the corner for a big play is a fraction of a second. In the NFL, every player is a world-class athlete. Over 100 years of the NFL Only 326 have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Bill Parcells is one of them.

How does that square with reward learning, not results?

It depends on what we are doing. The military does an incredible job with recruits. They take young people 18 years of age and teach them to make life or death decisions in a split second and they do it with thousands of people. Would you want to reward learning when people died by a poor decision or the result when a good decision was made, and people didn't die? Transfer that to a sales call with a new person on the job. If they got an appointment, ran a decent sales call, but failed to close I would reward them for learning and coach them on how to finish the next appointment successfully. Now we are talking about a 10-year sales veteran. It is all about the results. Personally, I am an old school get in their face make it happen individual. There never were a lot of us and there are far fewer now. If I expected to coach a Millennial or Gen-Z individual the way I liked to be coached or the way I think I should coach I would fail miserably.

You adjust your style the way Phil Jackson Coached the Chicago Bulls. 'I treat every player the same... but differently.' He coached Michael Jordan, the Greatest of All Time. He also coached John Paxson. A high-quality NBA basketball player, but a ghost compared to Jordan. He treated them the same in that he expected a 100% effort within the team concept at both ends of the court. He treated them differently in how he measured the results. Pax could have graded a perfect game with 12 points, 9 rebounds, and 8 assists. Jordan could have coasted with 35 points, 15 rebounds, and 10 assists.

Jack Welch, the legend from GE, was famous for his leadership. What gets measured gets improved. It is also true that what gets inspected gets respected. My successes come when I understand the people I am working with. I treat them all the same, but differently to adjust my coaching to their personal learning style and my expectations of their capabilities. While some Key Performance Indicators are the same for everyone, others are unique to the individual's development needs and capabilities. That means the measurements are individualized, but all are inspected.

Jake Zwieg is a life coach I have become acquainted with that works at the University of Illinois. He is a graduate of the Naval Academy, a former Navy Seal, and TV star. He is in the mold of Parcells. He preaches FIRE to Millennials.

“This generation has a tough time learning from others so for the most part, they have to get punched in the face to understand. Getting the freshmen to understand how much more work it takes to get on the field compared to High School, is my biggest task early in the process. They all want to start and then they get their chance and get SMASHED. Then and only then do they realize what we are telling them is the truth, and then you start to see them eating on EXTRA! LIFE! It's an animal and it will eat you.”

“Would you climb Mount Everest without a guide?

DO YOU WANT TO BE SUCCESSFUL?

YOU HAVE TO HAVE MENTORS!

Mentors are the guides to life success! “

Leaders, Coaches & Mentors

Business leaders are also coaches and mentors. I hope others see me as a leader. I know I am a coach. I know I am a mentor. I get far greater satisfaction from watching one of my 'players' develop into a Hall of Fame performer than I do my own success. I am fortunate to be able to look around and see the success of those I have mentored, even those that failed to make the cut with me. Many of them learned the hard way. That is far better than never learning at all.

Leaders like Parcells and Zweig are believers in FIRE. They lead with PASSION and DISCIPLINE. There isn't a single successful individual in the history of the world who was able to succeed without PASSION & DISCIPLINE. As society has changed, the methods of coaching the best out of people have evolved on the surface. They are kinder and gentler on the surface. When you scrape away the packaging, the message has not changed. DISCIPLINE, FIRE & PASSION remain at the core. PROGRESS is measured by LEARNING. SUCCESS is measured by RESULTS.

If you like what you are reading here, there are two ways you can be coached or mentored by me. Sign on as a producer with my company or invite me to speak to your team or group. Either way, after our first meeting, you'll have a clearly defined path, a track to success to run on if you want to be successful and have the ability discipline yourself. If I see good reason to mentor you, I will. Your only cost is your effort and discipline. Three strikes and you're out is for baseball. With me, you get one. Feel free to waste your time and your life. You don't get to waste my time.

My time is my most valuable commodity. My time is not to be wasted with halfhearted efforts. You are either all-in or you are out. If you want to try, you aren’t ready for me. If you want to succeed and win, we should be working together. The question is, are you willing to do the work and make the sacrifices necessary to be a leader in your profession?