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WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM TEAMS IN PROFESSIONAL SPORT?

Very occasionally, I take a leadership example from the world of professional sport… but it's quite rare to see one of the greatest sportsmen of all time talking in detail about what makes a team great.

I came across an article in Harvard Business Review – thanks to one of our longstanding No Bullsh!t Leadership leaders, Richard Gooderham. This article fuses together the worlds of professional sport and business leadership to give us some indelible lessons on how to build excellence into your team's culture.

We know that there will always be exceptional individuals in every field who rise up to become the focus of our attention, our admiration and, yes, even our criticism. But no individual can be truly successful without the right team around them, providing the foundations of support that enable them to achieve amazing things individually.

In this newsletter, I explore the principles of building a winning team from a man widely considered to be the GOAT – the Greatest Of All Time – and he offers some invaluable lessons in how to make your team really hum.

I begin this newsletter with my perspective on the differences between showing leadership as part of a team and being in a formal leadership position; I then delve into some of the general principles that drive high achievement in a team environment; and I finish by exploring some of the key concepts outlined in the HBR article that are going to aid you in your quest to build a winning team.?

INDIVIDUAL BRILLIANCE IS OK… BUT THE TEAM MATTERS MOST!

We're now deep into the professional football season here in the US. I never cease to be amazed by the ferocity of competition, the skill and athleticism of the individuals, and their sheer will to win. Competing at this elite level takes incredible will, commitment, and dedication.

Of the millions upon millions of young athletes who aspire to play in the NFL, only the tiniest fraction ever makes it there, so just being on the team puts you in rarefied air.

One of the greatest individuals to ever play the game is Tom Brady, whose 23-season career in the NFL is unrivaled. With seven Superbowl rings, he won more championships than any other player in the NFL's 60-odd-year history. In fact, Brady has more individual championships than any other team in NFL history.

Brady was drafted as the 199th pick of the 2000 NFL draft. The team that drafted him, the New England Patriots went on to appear in nine Superbowl championships over an 18-year period, winning six of them.

Now just think about that for a minute – in a sport that has structural measures in place to prevent any one team from gaining dominance, the Patriots won the AFC Championship every second year and won the Superbowl one in every three years, over an 18-year stretch.

To put that into further context, 12 of the 32 teams in the NFL now have never won a Superbowl championship.

So yes, Brady was great, but it took a lot more than his individual brilliance to put together that winning streak for the ages – which as any diehard Patriots fan will tell you, is well over. And, which is why I was so interested to read Brady's thoughts on the role of the team as I read his HBR interview with the former Dean of Harvard Business School, Nitin Nohria, titled Tom Brady on the Art of Leading Teammates.

The article looks at the ingredients that make a team special, as told by an insider who was part of building one of the most special teams in living memory.

I touched on Brady's journey very briefly in an early podcast episode where I looked at his long-term focus, and his willingness to put team goals ahead of his own personal gratification (Ep.29: Winning Without Self-Interest). But before I go too much further, I just want to put some context around the lessons from Brady's experience.

The first caveat is that there's a really big difference between being a player on a team, and being a formal leader in an organization. Some things are the same, granted – but there are also some subtle differences, and these differences absolutely matter.

The second caveat is that, in the overall scheme of things, NFL organizations are pretty small. With 11 players on the field at any one time and only 48 actually dressing for each game, culture is pretty manageable. It's very different from leading a company with 50,000 employees in 25 countries. Scale and proximity matter when it comes to establishing and maintaining a high performance culture.

And the third caveat is that these teams have access to an almost endless pool of elite talent. Most of us just don't have that luxury. Our ability to hire depends on our company's brand… its location… the industry it operates in… and, of course, the ability to pay to secure the top talent. But in the NFL, a player will happily move from California to Green Bay, Wisconsin, just for a chance to maybe take the field one day.

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THE FOUNDATIONS OF A GREAT TEAM PLAYER

Let's have a look at some of the general principles that drive high achievement in a team environment. Brady opens up with some insights into what made him the player and the person that he was, which I think are highly relevant to us because leadership starts with self.

The first thing that struck me was Brady's focus on team rather than individual achievements. He says, "Much of my approach came from being born into an amazing family and having a strong upbringing and this orientation deepened when I was in high school and college." And this led to Brady having a real focus on the team outcomes.

He quotes an old sports cliche, "Do you want to be a star? Or do you want to be a champion?" This subtle difference is all-important. If you want to achieve long-term success, you can only do so with a focus on being a champion and you can't do that without building a phenomenal team around you.

This isn't just confined to sport – it's absolutely the case in business leadership as well. The only way to create long-term individual success is to build a team of high performers around you, each of whom has the opportunity to deliver their best.

The second principle that Brady makes an observation about is personal accountability. A lot of people around him would take credit for their wins, but blame others for their losses. He said, and I quote, "Some players take all the credit when things go right, but when things go wrong, they make excuses and place the blame on everyone else, including referees, teammates and coaches. They focus too much on individual statistics or records or awards. They self-serve and their teammates recognize it. When I see players like that who seem to care more about themselves than the team, I can also see how that makes the people around them less motivated to give their best effort."

And here comes the kicker. He says, "In a way, I was lucky those behaviors are so pervasive because if they weren't, many of the teams I played against would've been more difficult to beat." So, if you want to build a great team, then you have to be the poster child for accountability.

The third insight was Brady's ability to handle disappointment. In the final season of his college career at the University of Michigan, Brady suffered a significant setback as the coach questioned whether he should be the starting quarterback.

In Brady's own words, "The way I handled myself during the first few games of that season when things didn't go the way I wanted them to was very important in my development as a leader, I continued to work hard. I put the team first, and I always supported my teammates even as I tried to prove that I was the right person to play quarterback. This fundamental change in attitude set the tone for the rest of my athletic career."

Brady didn't throw his toys out of the cot. Instead, he remained focused on improving, and on supporting his teammates.

These three insights give us some clues about the personal foundations you need to start with if you want to be able to effectively influence the team around you.

Let's look at some of Brady's lessons about leading the team, and see how applicable they are to us as business leaders.?

LESSON #1: SET THE STANDARD FOR 100% EFFORT

Brady is convinced that, to build the best team, you have to hold yourself to a higher standard. This is the essence of leading by example. It's the philosophy of always doing more than is required.

Brady tells a great story about his preparation and approach to training. When the coaches would say, "You're all going to do 20 wind sprints each under 7 seconds with a 30-second break in between," Brady would pipe up and say, "No, we are not doing that. We're going to run 24 sprints each under 6 seconds with only a 15-second break in between."

You want a competitive edge? Well, you've got to do more than the next guy.

Brady also talks about relative individual performance compared to the team. By his reckoning, most players in NFL only give 70 to 80%. But he provides clear rationale for this when he says, "Imagine being on a losing team because you are the best on that team, the feedback is self-reinforcing and your own standards drop."

That's why he says to look for that extra 5-10% – because that's what ultimately makes the difference. Brady said that, sometimes the pace-setting wasn't about working harder physically. It was about communicating expectations more candidly. He would say to his teammates, “Hey, do you want me to lie and tell you what you want to hear or do you want me to tell you the truth? You were not prepared today, so you weren't at your best. We need you to be better."

And, in a more philosophical tone, he adds, "As a society, we've moved away from having those frank conversations. As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that when people give me tough love and tell me the truth, it's often the best sign that they really care about me."

This is such a critical leadership principle. You often hear me talking about principles like respect before popularity and giving people the gift of feedback. Well, on this one, Tom and I are in complete alignment.

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LESSON #2: RECOGNIZE EACH PLAYER’S INDIVIDUAL MOTIVATION

… and then, work out how to motivate them. One of the most challenging – and at the same time, rewarding – aspects of leadership is that every individual is different. You can't use a cookie-cutter approach and hope to excel as a leader.

It's important to know every individual… what drives them… what makes them tick. You can't build a high-performing team unless you bring out the best performance of each individual. Their contributions won't be equal obviously, because some people have more talent, more skill and more capacity than others. But your job as a leader is to work with each individual to bring out their best performance.

In terms of working out what drives different players, Brady says, "Some are motivated by money and contracts. Some are motivated by recognition, like making the All-Pro team. Some are motivated by what the media is writing about them. Some are motivated by winning championships, while others, well, they're just trying to avoid losing their job. Great leaders recognize these things instinctively and they're able to find each person's motivational levers."

In my view, this is leadership at its best… but then, Tom spoils it by going on to say, "You spend 90% of your time with the 10% of players who are most challenging. The time spent managing challenging teammates is worth it because you're not just bringing up their performance, you're also keeping them from bringing down everyone else's. People don't always appreciate this work, but it's what leaders must do."

I think what he says is partly right, but I learned over the years that you need to spend 80% of your time with the top 20% of your people, not the bottom 20% where you're naturally going to gravitate. This is where we differ slightly, and where I think player leadership diverges from a formal leadership role.

Brady says you just have to work with the players around you, no matter who they are. And to be fair, he wasn't accountable for selection decisions (although, of course, as his career went on he had an increasing influence on them).

But in the world of business leadership, when you don't have the right person, you don't have to persevere to the bitter end.

When someone doesn't fit the team culture, or when they aren't up to the job, or when they simply choose not to perform? That's when you need to step in and free them up to be successful in another organization – preferably, one of your competitors.?

LESSON #3: UNDERSTAND AND COMPLEMENT THE FORMAL LEADER’S STYLE

It's hard to have the Tom Brady conversation without also talking about Bill Belichick, the man who coached Brady and the Patriots through this purple patch.

Belichick's leadership style was fairly severe. As Brady puts it, "The focus was on discipline and accountability, not on empathy or compassion. No matter how we played, Coach Belichick's coaching style was to motivate the team by looking for weaknesses and areas to improve."

Brady said that there's an argument that players need that. "Pro athletes have a lot of people in their lives telling us how great we are. Coach Belichick always wanted to keep us from buying into those narratives and becoming complacent. We all felt fortunate to play for him and there were many benefits to his approach, but his motivational style, often based on fear, was sometimes difficult. So as a team leader, I tried to complement that approach by being a bit more upbeat."

Reading between the lines here, this is a classic case of damned by faint praise. Brady clearly didn't resonate with Belichick's style, but he saw himself as the counterbalance, and maybe this is why it all worked.

Brady observed the Belichick never got too close to his players. He says, "Belichick wasn't one to form personal relationships with players or coaches because it's difficult to do that when you know you'll have to trade, cut, or fire most of them at some point down the road. So, I often took the opposite approach. I tried to get to know my teammates deeply and show that I cared about them personally."

Okay, this is a really interesting topic for business leaders. Brady and Belichick were yin and yang. Belichick being performance driven to the point of being unfeeling. Brady, showing compassion as a way to mitigate the brutal realism of the coach.

What if you could build both of these attributes in the one person?

I described how to achieve this balance in an episode we produced almost three years ago (Ep.182: What is Strong Leadership)? The very best leaders are deeply compassionate, caring, and empathetic (as Brady clearly is) – but they also preserve a level of professional distance (as Belichick did).

This means they aren't compromised by sympathetic lapses when hard decisions need to be made. They totally understand the friendly, not friends principle, and they meet in the middle at a common point –setting uncompromising standards for performance, in order to achieve great things.

This is the synergy that the Brady-Belichick relationship delivered.?

LESSON #4: THE IMPORTANCE OF CONNECTING OUTSIDE THE OFFICE

This is one that I want to get into, because I depart a little from Brady here. He used the example of his recent junket to the Bahamas, as a member of the Fox Sports Commentary team.

He says, "We played games on the beach, we shared meals, and we got to know each other. We were creating a shared experience outside the environment that we’re used to, and we saw new parts of everyone's personalities. The camaraderie we built, and the better understanding we gained of one another as individuals is going to help us to perform better as a group this Fall."

Yeah, Tom, I dunno… maybe?

A commentary team is very different from a team in a business. And (never having done it, mind you), I'd imagine one of your objectives is to be able to relate to each other on camera, and have an ease of rapport that facilitates the flow of conversation, thereby improving the viewer experience.

It's very different from running a team that has to deliver high-value outputs every day. As a peer group, I suspect this can work pretty well but, as a leader, I wouldn't recommend you do this with your team members. It may cross a line that's counterproductive.

Brady goes so far as to say, "Some people criticize corporate off-sites or team-building events as wasteful junkets. That is enormously short-sighted. Leadership is about improving the quality of teammates’ relationships and building trust, and that comes from shared experiences."

Yeah, nah! I don't think this translates at all well to the corporate environment, and my experience (which I outlined in Ep. 170: Epic Team-Building Fails) is that conducting a team-building exercise once a year does little to improve either relationships or performance.

It's only shared experience in the workplace – achieving difficult things together – that creates that bond. But hey, I'm not the GOAT, so maybe Tom's right?!?

LESSON #5: A LEADER’S INFLUENCE TAKES TIME TO EVOLVE

Brady says, "It can take years for a leader's style to become natural and effective. During my first season in the NFL, I was a third-string quarterback. No one outside the Patriots thought of me as a team leader, but inside the locker room I was showing leadership in small ways. For example, I regularly pulled younger guys aside after practice to run extra plays.”

He would say to them, "The starters are playing more than we are, so we need to do more to keep up and to get better." Within his small group — the offensive players who weren't starters – he would take charge. He also focused on showing confidence so that more experienced teammates would trust him when he began playing in games.

As Brady recounts, “By the time I was in my forties, I was leading in a much different style. Some younger players who'd grown up watching me on TV felt intimidated by me, so I worked on being approachable and showing humility, and by that point I didn't have to try to appear confident because I had developed real confidence."

There's a lot of fabulous lessons here:

One is that you can be a leader even before you are given the title. It just takes a willingness to stand up and take control and to show people a way forward.

Another is that, over time, your confidence and style will evolve. The more you do, the more you learn and the better you'll become.

And the third is to not believe your own bullsh!t. You can always be better personally, and you can always focus on helping your teammates to be better too.

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WE CAN LEARN A LOT FROM THE BEST OF THE BEST!

Despite the obvious differences, there's a lot we can learn from professional sport. The reason I look to it occasionally for lessons is that it redefines our perception of what the term “high performance” really means.

As a business leader, you'll find plenty of opportunities to apply these principles, and to begin to establish a team culture where every individual does more than is asked of them…

… where you understand every individual's drivers, their unique talents, and their potential for delivering value to the team,

… where you’re able to harness and apply everyone's unique talents to ensure they complement, rather than replicate each other,

…? where everyone shares an uncompromising quest to reach a higher standard, and

… where you work every day to evolve, improve, and grow into the leader you know you can be.

But don't worry too much about the team-building exercises, okay?

This is from Episode 326 of the No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast. Each week, I share the secrets of high performance leadership; the career accelerators that you can’t learn in business school, and your boss is unlikely to share with you. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast player.