Lessons from Ted Lasso - #1 No Jerks
Colin Iles ????????????????????
Curating Thought Leadership for CEOs Looking to Make a Difference | Innovation Catalyst | Matchmaker | Executive Coaching | Visioning Strategist | Strategy Facilitation | Recovering Banker | Once a CA
Happy New Year!
Before kicking off with my first newsletter of 2021, I have a quick request.
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Now. Lets talk about Jerks!
I wish I'd learnt this lesson earlier in my career, in terms of both how I behaved and who I employed.
It was only when I led a group, who initially seemed under-qualified, but ultimately over-delivered, that I truly 'believed' that jerks should never be allowed a place in your team.
From experience I now know that high performance teams don't have to have the most skilled or most experienced individuals.
It's just way, way, way more important that they have an aligned purpose and that the environment is created to engender high levels of mutual trust.
From that baseline everything becomes exponentially easier, including things like...
-accelerated individual learning curves
-insane levels of collaboration
-complete willingness to share mistakes from which everyone can learn and fail fast.
Of course, creating an environment that builds trust is not easy.
Leaders that excel in this space, spend most of their lives tinkering with different models to make it work.
But the one thing they all realise is that creating a high-performance team is impossible with jerks in the mix.
All of which begs the question, why so many leaders don't walk their talk and consistently allow jerks to occupy senior roles in their organisations?
Maybe this clip from Ted Lasso will inspire them to make the change....
Independent Consultant
4 年Would you rather be an outstanding individual or part of a team of outstanding individuals ?
Enabling responsible use of Technology for People, Profit & our Planet.
4 年Thanks for sharing Colin Iles - I loved that movie also, including for the reason you outlined. Atlassian adopted a similar policy of weeding out “brilliant jerks”, by changing the way they did performance reviews to reward workers who show 'heart and balance' not just technical skills. I am spending a lot of time researching coaches, as I think this is one of the key purposes of great leadingship. Keep it coming mate - ?? your content...as always!
Think Different
4 年????
Experienced DevOps and Security Manager/Director
4 年The thing is, in the real world (the one that coaches don't live in), we're all jerks at times. (ok, just me?). Everyone has a bad day occasionally and can behave like a complete ass to someone who doesn't deserve it. A good supportive working environment helps, almost as good as a sincere apology can be. Emotion is NOT bad in business, as long as everyone is facing in the same direction. I remember many years ago having a free and frank exchange of views in a corridor with a director; we both wanted the same outcome, but we disagreed on how to get there. We carried on working well together for years. There are other people that I don't personally get on it, but who are very efficient and good at their jobs; my feelings shouldn't push them out of the company. Of course, if someone is continually a complete jerk, then I agree - move them on. I've just never seen that person, in over 30 years working.
Transformational CEO and Board Director
4 年The role of the leader apart from clarity of purpose - to bring out the best in our people.